“Love’s Labors Lost” proved to be just about perfect summer entertainment last weekend. A lively treatment of one of Shakespeare’s lesser-performed works, set outside in the cool, lovely glade at the Napa College, it’s fun, user friendly — and free, and it packed in an audience of all ages. 

The play is a quirky work as Shakespeare’s plays go — there’s little action; it has neither murders nor marriages, and ends on an almost solemn note, given all the lighthearted comedy that builds up to it.

Here’s the situation: The king of Navarre (David Ewing) and three of his men, Berowne (Dorian Sammartino),  Longaville (Derek O’Reilly) and Dumain (Josh Jones) have vowed to spend three years in scholarly solitude, to study, fast and “not to see a woman in that term.”

This lofty plan last about five minutes, or until the arrival of the lovely princess of France (Tenaya Jorgensen) and her attendants (Jennifer Jorve, Carnida Doran, Angelina La Barre and Jamelle Marshall-Williams) on a diplomatic mission. Cupid lets fly his arrows and all four men are goners.

Slightly miffed, however, by their less than chivalrous reception, (they had to camp outside the castle, but that was before the gentlemen saw them), the ladies proceed to extract the maximum of enjoyment from the men’s dilemma. For their part, the men offer but cursory resistance to the temptation to shelve their vows and chase the objects of their love. Once they discover, in a richly comic spying scene, that each of them is surreptitiously pursuing one of the ladies, they easily agree that there is no greater wisdom than that found in love. Their rather bizarre joint solution, to disguise themselves as dancing “Moscovites” to see the ladies, is one of the most entertaining parts of the play.  Amusing though the ladies find their wooers, the consensus is these men must prove they can keep a  vow, and so the frustrated lovers are dispatched to spend a year apart and then return to the women. So the comedy ends without the usual marriages, and one only hopes the Princess of Italy and her entourage doesn’t wander into the men’s orbit in the ensuing year.

Meanwhile, other subjects of the realm are equally entangled in questions of love. A pompous lunatic Armando (Don Laughridge) who is attended by a page Moth (charmingly played by an elfin Vicky Bristow), is lusting after the earthy peasant Jacquenetta (Stephanie Rivas), who is also the object of the hilarious Costard (Matt Robinson). The elaborate word-play of the work is further extended by the encounters of the scholar Holofernes, (David Schuster), who appears to live to hear his own clever voice, his admiring somewhat vacant-headed foil, the curate (Sam Burch) and the appropriately named Dull (Erick Gist). And if the precise reason for all these characters is somewhat vague, they prove their worth in the screwball entertainment they present at the end of the play for the King and all his guests — only one highlight of which is Dull’s singsong recital (while dressed elaborately as a tree) of Spring’s song of the cuckoo. The cast also includes Maggie Crane and Magdalena Hersey as ladies-in-waiting. Director Carla Spindt set the work in Regency England and the wonderful costumes evoke the romantic world of Jane Austen, fitting in a play obsessed with love and all its attendant complications.

Some believe one of the reasons “Love’s Labors Lost” was less popular after Shakespeare’s time is the rich and pun-filled language with many of the jokes lost on an audience that didn’t speak Elizabethan English. Under Spindt’s inspired direction, however, the cast deals masterfully with the language and conveys the story. Ewing, for example, splendidly aristocratic as Navarre, reels off Shakespeare’s gorgeous prose but accompanies it with just enough nuances — a raised eyebrow, a roll of the eyes — to translate for everyone, “Holy mackerel, I’m hooked” or “Oh, yikes, I’ve been caught.” Another marvelous performance is turned in by Sammartino as Berowne, the wordiest of the lovers, who falls for the arch, witty and challenging Rosaline, deftly portrayed by Jovez.

Napa Valley College’s Shakespeare in the Park is delightful, and filling in the void left by the demise of the Napa Valley Shakespeare Festival. Its lack of pretension is refreshing and its sense of fun irresistible. Considering the agreeable price of admission — free — it’s a great reason to pack a picnic, sit in the shade and laugh at the antics of others in love.

‘Love’s Labors Lost’

Napa Valley College glade

Aug. 1, 2 and 3, 6 p.m.

Free admission, picnicking welcome

Info,  259-8077