With its four pair of witty lovers, Latin puns, dialect humor and spectacular fifth-act party scene, William Shakespeare's early comedy is rarely staged nowadays, being a cumbersome undertaking even for the most sumptuous budgets. As adapted and performed by the five-member Encore! company, however, Love -- you-betcha -- conquers all in a brisk 90 minutes with little more costuming than the distinctive headgear and hand props that identify each character so indelibly that even when these are rendered temporarily cross-gender, or represented solely by their hats (Rosaline with a chapel veil, Holofernes with a mortarboard, Jaquenetta with a Carmen Miranda tignon, etc.), or switched in mid-scene (sometimes in mid-speech), we never lose track of the interpersonal dynamic or convoluted story-line.
And if the accelerated pace pushes the personalities into cartoon-broad archetypes -- in particular, Larry Tobias' guitar-wielding Don Armando -- the tongue-in-cheek irreverence and deft legerdemain with which their portrayers execute the show's intricate choreography are sufficient to win over an audience more than delighted to be pressed into service as, among other things, a chorus of high-stepping Moiseyev-styled dancers (act V, scene II -- look it up if you don't believe me).
That all this seems perfectly logical speaks for the infectious charm of this Virginia-based touring ensemble.
