Left - Brett Stiller and Alice Ansara. Cover - Sophie Ross, Zindzi Okenyo and Alice Ansara. Photos - Brett BoardmanThe Comedy of Errors is perhaps Shakespeare at his most slapstick, and is certainly one of his broadest comedies, at least insofar as lacking the counterpoint of pathos found in Much Ado About Nothing or A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or the intriguing gender play of Twelfth Night. Like the latter, however, Errors involves mistaken identity between separated twins unaware of each other’s survival – although in this case since birth – leading to all manner of hilarious incidents stemming from mistaken identity.
As Rowan Atkinson, playing an imperious teacher in a comedy sketch, once described it: “The Comedy of Errors has the joke of two people looking like each other. Twice.”
While this facetious assessment accurately describes the play’s central premise, you have to admit - it’s a damn good joke. The story involves not one but two sets of identical twins separated as infants, and to make matters worse, they are both paired in identical master/servant relationships, and even both have the same names as their respective doppelgängers. Naturally, this leads to increasing chaos as the servants and masters unwittingly swap around and have no recollection of previous conversations mistakenly conducted with their doubles, are thrust into each other’s lives and business dealings, and manage to get into all manner of escalating confusion until everyone thinks they are on the verge of going mad.
This is essentially a production aimed at schools, being part of the STC Ed series, and to this end it is a successful rendition, providing a quite faithful treatment of the text that avoids delving into any wildly unconventional interpretations or textual alterations. While this lack of innovative spark may leave more demanding audiences underwhelmed, it seems largely appropriate for a schools-oriented production to take this solid conventional approach. The proof would appear to be in the pudding, as the large proportion of students in the audience on opening night were highly engaged and evidently found the show quite uproarious.
Directed by Charmian Gradwell with a strong sense of fun and enthusiasm for the material, the production is lively and suitably energetic, staged on a multi-level set that affords diverse scenarios for the highly physical acting style employed. The production design by Matthew Stegh is perhaps pandering to its teen audience a little selfconsciously in attempting to look “street” with a dash of Ed Hardy, but the strange patchwork of lurid colours and designs are eye-catching enough to not feel too contrived.
The strong cast has ample opportunity to flex its comedic muscles, most doubling as multiple characters as well as live musicians, often involving some fairly outrageous costume changes. As is generally the convention, the two sets of twins are denoted not through casting credibly matched actors but rather just adequately similar ones wearing improbably identical outfits. Tahki Saul and the ubiquitous Brett Stiller serve as the two Antipholuses, while their twin servants the Dromios are played by Richard Pyros and Julia Ohannessian. Stiller and Saul are both well cast as the comparative “straight-men” of the piece who slowly start to crack up to hilarious effect, while Pyros and Ohannessian make a strange but no less effective pair as the manic, put-upon servants. While I have seen these roles gender-swapped before, it has generally involved having both twins be of the same sex within each pair, so while having Ohannessian playing Pyros’ brother may conceivably baulk a few of the younger patrons, it works well on the whole with the two actors doing a riotous job of mimicking each other’s performances.
The rest of the cast are equally good, with Alice Ansara very funny as the shrewish wife Adriana and the diminutive Ursula Mills in two incongruously tough-guy parts, and Zindzi Okenyo elicited some big laughs from the school crowd with her Jamaican-accented Balthazar. Cameron Goodall was a standout in the diverse roles of the stoic father Ægeon, junkie-like Stranger, vampy Courtesan, and flamboyant exorcist Pinch, each costume more outlandish than the last. The comely Sophie Ross got the front row of 15-year-old boys a bit excited when she draped her lithe form over the footlights (one can only imagine what their reaction might have been had they seen her nude role in The Mysteries: Genesis a few months ago!), but served as far more than mere eye candy in the role of Luciana.
STC Ed’s production of The Comedy of Errors is not the freshest or most outrageous rendition of this play you will ever see, but then nor does it apparently aspire to be such. Consistently engaging, very funny and highly accessible (not to mention rather short), this punchy production would serve as an excellent introduction to Shakespeare for younger students, or those studying its text. For anyone else, it is still a thoroughly entertaining night at the theatre.
STC Ed presents The Residents in
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
by William Shakespeare
Director Charmian Gradwell
Venue: Wharf 2, Sydney Theatre Company, Pier 4/5 Hickson Road, Walsh Bay
Dates: 6 - 27 August 2010
Opening Night: 9 August 2010 at 7.00pm
Evening performances: 7.00pm on 7, 9, 17, 19, 20, 25, 26 and 27 August
Tickets: $25 - $31 (transaction fees may apply)
Bookings: 02 9250 1777 | sydneytheatre.com.au
