A sense of clarity brought Dominic Dromgoole to Shakespeare's Globe Theater in London.

Dromgoole, the Globe's artistic director since 2005, shares his clear-eyed view of Shakespeare with Mondavi Center audiences this week via "Love's Labour's Lost."

Before coming to the Globe, Dromgoole was already a London theater fixture – as artistic director of the Bush Theatre; in charge of developing new plays for the Old Vic; and also in charge of the Oxford Stage company.

Though Dromgoole was exposed to Shakespeare all his life, when he saw it performed he wasn't always sure what was happening onstage or what the actors were actually saying.

"I'm quite drenched in Shakespeare," Dromgoole said from his London office.

"I've been reading Shakespeare all my life and working on Shakespeare a fair amount. Even then I go to the theater, I listen hard and only hear and completely understand, easily and simply, about 40 percent or 50 percent of the whole evening."

But he gained his sense of clarity seeing the work done at the Globe Theater on the south bank of the Thames. The abstract language became real for Dromgoole when he saw the plays being done in a space similar to what Shakespeare's audiences would have known, performed in much the authentic way.

The Globe, which opened in 1997 after a decades-long campaign by American director Sam Wanamaker, is a relatively faithful reconstruction of Shakespeare's own open-air playhouse, built in 1599. The playwright created much of his work for that oval arena, where the audience either sits in the gallery or stands in the open yard in front of the stage.

"There's something about the simple fact that Shakespeare wrote for that architecture and he wrote for that relationship between the audience and the stage," Dromgoole said.

There were no lights in Elizabethan times, so Globe productions are performed similarly. When the company tours and plays indoor auditoriums, the audience and actors share the same house lighting. Dromgoole thinks this not only brings the audience more into the performance but also adds an important contemporary dynamic.

"They are there and they have their iPhones on them and their iPods on them and their heads are full of the credit crunch," he said.

With audiences bringing their own inescapable modernity with them to the theater, Dromgoole doesn't feel the need to modernize Shakespeare. He looks at each play as a new work rather than one that is 400 years old, and he has all that performance history to react to.

"That's a whole different attitude to making theater where you have to put a big stamp of personality on it as a director, a designer or an actor," Dromgoole said.

"Love's Labour's Lost" is one of Shakespeare's most Elizabethan plays, with dense wordplay and topical allusions, much of it sexual, dominating the text.

"It's foul through and through," Dromgoole said with a laugh.

"We try not to overplay it, but if you're just aware of it in the back of your head, it gives the language a real electricity."

The story concerns the King of Navarre and three of his lords who vow to study, fast and forsake the company of women for three years. However, the Princess of France and her three ladies in waiting arrive on a diplomatic mission, and the men's intentions quickly change.

Much of the reason "Love's Labor's Lost" comes here direct from London is the Mondavi Center's connection to the Globe's education program. For the past three years, area high school teachers have participated in the Globe Education Academy, overseen by Joyce Donaldson, director of arts education at the Mondavi.

Donaldson and a small panel select 12 teachers a year from a competitive application process to participate in the three-part program that then-UC Davis Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef set in motion. The school districts involved have included Elk Grove, San Juan Unified, Folsom-Cordova and Roseville, with schools from as far away as Livermore and Napa also taking part.

A series of workshops is taught in the spring by UC Davis faculty members and practitioners from Globe Education in London. In the summer, the teachers take part in a two-week residency at the Globe, where they are immersed in theater study – attending workshops emphasizing a particular play and seeing performances. As great as two weeks in London sounds, Donaldson cautioned: "It's not a sightseeing tour. They're involved pretty much 24/7."

The third part of the program is a fall production at the Mondavi Center Studio Theater. The 12 teachers select students from their classrooms and put on a version of the play they studied in London. This year it's "Romeo and Juliet"; the performance takes place Nov. 17.

Each teacher is asked to choose and present a block of the play; the class has a five- to seven-minute presentation which, when taken together, forms a continuity of the story.

"It's just enough to make the play flow, to get the idea," Donaldson said.

Some teachers bring up to 30 students, some bring just five. Donaldson tells them they can't exceed the Studio Theater's 200-person capacity. Parents don't attend and the students essentially perform for each other. As one group is onstage, the others are in the audience.

Coming from different schools and school districts, most of the students don't know each other and haven't seen what the others are doing.

"They have a great respect for each other when they're actually performing," Donaldson said.

Kathy Koblik from Emerson Junior High School in Davis participated in the Globe Academy last year.

"I'm not a theater person; I'm an English teacher, but studying Shakespeare over there showed me how really human he is and the kids can really relate to it on that basis," Koblik said.

Koblik is teaching "Romeo and Juliet" to her ninth-grade students this year, and though the basic story already appeals to them, there's much more to grasp.

"Kids come into 'Romeo and Juliet' expecting they already know what it's about, but they leave totally arguing about it – what's right and what's not."

Koblik will bring her class to the "Love's Labour's Lost" matinee. She appreciates that Shakespeare's works ask questions more than they provide answers, which helps her students grow.

"The space in Shakespeare is pretty incredible for them to do that," Koblik said.

Call The Bee's Marcus Crowder, (916) 321-1120.