Love, Fire, and other elements

Hello!

In both of Lucetta's scenes, Love is associated with a burning desire, and to Lucetta, Love will burn out of control (as Lucetta fears for Julia), or it must be extinguished. The particular lines to which I refer to are:

Lucetta

Fire that's closest kept burns most of all (1.2.30)

Julia

Didst thou but know the inly touch of love

Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow

As seek to quench the fire of love with words.

Lucetta

I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire,

But qualify the fire's extreme rage,

Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.

Julia

The more thou damm'st it up, the more it burns (2.7.18-24)

Proteus has some similar remarks about Love bearing the properties of fire:

Proteus

Thus have I shunn'd the fire for fear of burning,

And drench'd me in the sea, where I am drown'd.

and

Proteus

That I did love, for now my love is thaw'd;
Which, like a waxen image, 'gainst a fire,
Bears no impression of the thing it was.

Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,
And that I love him not as I was wont.

I think the contrast between Julia's hot, passionate desire and Proteus's "thaw'd" love is notable. Likewise, Proteus views Silvia as the flame that melts his former love, which is to say... he tries to fight fire with fire, and we know that is a perilous path. Curiously, Proteus also views his friendship with Valentine as "cold" - as before, their friendship was alive, hot, and they fed each other, like two flames.

This has me thinking a lot about the earthly elements and their properties, and how we might work fire / earth / water / wind and their different states into what we're doing.

Duke

This weak impress of love is as a figure
Trenched in ice, which with an hour's heat
Dissolves to water and doth lose his form.
A little time will melt her frozen thoughts
And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.

I think there are ample opportunities here to explore these elements and their contrasts through character as well as costuming. Since we're all on our own for costumes it seems, perhaps we can start talking about color coordination, or working some of these images in to props or programs or .... ?