If music be the food of love...Speak on. Love's Labour's Lost, moreso than any other Shakespeare play I have read, is to me undeniably musical.
His words are so specifically chosen that it creates a sort of cadence that goes beyond a simple rhyming pattern, but into the world of melody.
- And again in 1979, BBC Radio enlisted director David Spenser, and composer Derek Oldfield for the job.
- Kenneth Branagh's 2000 film adaptation of the play was turned into a musical. (Although it was a box office failure, I've heard good things)
Often in his plays, Shakespeare does include actual songs for the spectacle of it, but this play is a series of extreme plays on words and turns of phrases, and incredibly, a majority of the time in Rhyme! According to my copy of the text, less than 35% of the play is NOT poetry!
I don’t know what I want to do with my life, but among the very strong possibilities, is to be a music teacher. There is something so powerful in the was a simple melody can move the soul. I could literally see myself conducting his dialogues:
Em, C, G, D.
maybe throw in an A7 chord behind "look" and "beguile
Can't you just hear the chord progressions under the words?
Ha! I saw part of the 2000 Box Office failed version. I saw it in Spanish though. I thought that it was a little strange when they didn't use the original words... I thought the music was creative (and I agree with you that this play goes well with music), but I wanted to hear the original words.
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