Watching this production of The Comedy of Errors is kind of like waiting in a two-hour lineup for a 15-minute ride. The show doesn’t really pay off until the very end. Before that, it burbles along pleasantly enough, but it’s weirdly shapeless.
So what’s going on? A couple of things.
Comedy doesn’t always age well, especially if, like The Comedy of Errors, it contains a lot of wordplay and outdated mores. With a script like this, success depends largely on the inventiveness of the interpretation. In director Rebecca Northan’s take, a lot of the comic surprises arise out of her use of double-casting and how that double-casting pays off in spectacular onstage costume transformations and skillful characterizations. When all that really starts rolling late in the second half, this production offers a solidly good time. Before that, things are spottier.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. A quick synopsis. Shakespeare’s play, which draws from a couple of Roman comedies from the second century BC, features two sets of identical twins who were separated by a storm at sea when they were infants. Antipholus, who lives in Syracuse, has come to Ephesus looking for his brother. He has arrived with his slave Dromio, who also has a twin. Their counterparts, of course, live in Ephesus — and conveniently, for the sake of comedy, have the same names — so everybody keeps mistaking Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse with Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus.
Few of the stakes within this convention carry much emotional weight, however; mostly, they’re about money and the trappings of wealth. Antipholus of Syracuse accepts a gold necklace that was ordered by his brother, for instance. And a purse full of drachmas gets misplaced. There’s not a lot to invest in here.
That said, there are two elements that could, potentially, add some weight to the carrying-on. Egeon, the father of the twin Antipholuses – lets say Antipholi — has arrived from Syracuse hoping to find the son who took off looking for his brother. But the two cities are warring so it’s illegal for him to be in Ephesus and he’ll be executed within a day if he can’t find somebody to pay his ransom. Actor Scott Bellis, who’s playing Egeon, finds plenty of melancholy in the character, but the world around him is farcical, without being particularly funny, so that melancholy dissipates — along with those stakes.
The second potentially grounding element is a story of troubled domesticity. Antipholus of Ephesus, where the story is set, is married. When his wife Adriana sees the other Antipholus and he doesn’t recognize her, she flips out — because she is already predisposed to mistrust her husband. Unlike Antipholus of Syracuse, who is an innocent, Antipholus of Ephesus is bit of a dick who likes to drink with his buddies and hang out with courtesans.
Unfortunately, Meaghan Chenosky, who’s playing Adriana, delivers the most problematic characterization of the evening. Because Chenosky isn’t articulating well, it’s hard to understand what she’s saying. And, emotionally, she gets stuck on one loud, angry note, so there’s none of the nuance that could have invited us into Adriana’s story, which takes up a lot of stage time.
And there’s another problem that’s baked into the play: both Antipholi beat their Dromios, which might have had them rolling in the stone aisles in the second century BC, but isn’t funny today.
Enough of all that. Let’s talk about the things that work.
Northan and Bruce Horak, who collaborated with her on this adaptation, have completely rewritten a scene in which Dromio of Syracuse recounts an encounter with an overwhelming kitchen maid in Ephesus. In the original, the jokes are all about how fat she is. To avoid fatphobia, the rewrite is all about how tall she is, especially compared to the relatively small Dromio: “I know not what use to put her to but to make of her a ladder.” It might not be obvious from that quote, but it’s very funny, by far the best scene before the intermission.
Tal Shulman brings great underdog comic energy to both Dromios.
And Jeremy Lewis is terrific as the Antipholi. Without being coarse about it, he makes the distinction between the two brothers crystal clear. And, when those two boys finally meet in the play’s climactic moments, Lewis’s exchanges with himself are the high point of the evening.
I also particularly enjoyed Karthik Kadam’s work as both a courtesan and a merchant. It’s fun that Northan has cast a guy as the flirtatious courtesan and it’s terrific that, playing the merchant, Kadam speaks big chunks of the text in Urdu. It was his idea, apparently, and it works: if you don’t speak Urdu, and I don’t, it means what you get is pure emotion.
In those climactic scenes, some actors, including Kadam transform from one of their characters to another — and it’s a real treat when his merchant’s simple tunic turns into the courtesan’s billowing robes. All hail costumer Christine Reimer who makes the magic happen.
In another lovely bit, Scott Bellis transforms back and forth between Egeon (the dad), and the goldsmith who made the necklace. When Egeon has to appear, the goldsmigh leaves his hat behind to be manipulated like a puppet by other actors.
Other folks who deserve major props include lighting designer Hina Nishioka, who ups the theatricality, and composer and sound designer Ben Elliott, who surrounds the text with a bubbling pop sensibility.
I left the theatre happy, which counts for a lot. But it doesn’t erase my memory of the wait.
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS By William Shakespeare. Adapted by Rebecca Northan with Bruce Horak. Directed by Rebecca Northan. On Wednesday, June 10. A Bard on the Beach production running in rep on the Howard Family Stage in the Douglas Campbell Theatre until September 21. Tickets and information
PHOTO CREDIT: Jeremy Lewis, who plays the Antipholi — REALLY well. (Photo by Tim Matheson)
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