The Comedy of Errors

Bard on the Beach (Vanier Park) to September 20, 2024
Tickets from $30 at 604-739-0559, toll free at 1-877-739-0559 or www.bardonthebeach.org

Posted July 19, 2024

Unless you have two sets of identical twins in your theatre company – and what company would have? – mounting The Comedy of Errors is an interesting challenge for a director. But that is the very best part of this play: using one actor for the mirror-image twin sons of Egeon and Amelia gets very tricky and very funny when both young men encounter each on stage at the same time. Anticipation mounts throughout the play as you know that, at some point, they will meet each other face to face in an ‘aha’ moment. The Comedy of Errors is all about the reuniting of a family. Adding to the complication is that both sons have a servant who is also an identical twin.

Egeon and Amelia and their two infant sons were separated during a shipwreck. One son, Antipholus, has ended up in Syracuse while the other son, also named Antipholus, has landed in Ephesus. Mother and father are also separated; both believe the other drowned. But now, years later, the cities of Syracuse and Ephesus are at odds and anyone from Syracuse who arrives in Ephesus is sentenced to death. So when Egeon (Scott Bellis), a resident of Syracuse, goes looking in Ephesus for his grown up sons, he’s immediately in deep trouble. Upon hearing his sad story, however, the kindly Duke of Ephesus grants him a 24-hour stay of execution plus the payment of a ransom.

Adding to the confusion is that the two identical twin servants of the two Antipholi are both called Dromio.

Yeah, I know. Insane. It’s Shakespeare.

Director Rebecca Northan, who directed Goblin Macbeth last season for Bard, brings a lot of energy to the play starting with a lively market scene that precedes the beginning of the play. Actors in colourful cotton robes and sandaled feet, hawk their wares from old wooden carts: ribbons, wool, jewellery, pottery and, my favourite, spices. Audience and actors mingle, discuss the goods for sale, make deals. It really sets the stage and it’s fun: no pressure to participate but you can walk around, browse and chat if you want.

That energy informs the whole production and this cast goes with it and runs. The two Dromios are played by Tal Shulman who clearly differentiates between the two: one Dromio is assertive, the other, submissive. Much of the humour derives from the Dromios not knowing which Antipholus is which. Sent off to do a task, the servant often returns to the wrong master with ridiculous confusion. “Where’s the money I gave you?”. “You gave me no money.” Like that and much more.

Antipholus of Ephesus is married to Adriana (Meaghan Chenosky) and you can imagine how bewildered Antipholus of Syracuse is when she fawns over him and calls him in for dinner then locks her actual husband out of the house. And, further, how funny it is when Adriana is jealous when the Antipholus she believes is her husband professes his love for her sister Luciana (Synthia Yusuf).

Lanky Jeremy Lewis plays both Antipholi and it’s surprising how easy it is to figure out which twin he is at any time. But just to make it absolutely clear, he wears a sash –  blue on one half, red on the other – which he switches around. Not necessary because the script makes it very clear.

Runaway star of this show is Karthik Kadam who, in the role of a courtesan, is so alluring, so sexy, so . . . perfectly hilarious especially as he swirls a gorgeous filmy white and gold cape around his bare, brown shoulders and shakes his dark curls provocatively.

It’s all very silly but it’s meant to be. You could go looking for serious content and you might find it but why would you? Director Northan confesses that, the world being “too much”, she needs some laughs and she goes for broke with this production.

[The Comedy of Errors was the first play I ever reviewed when I briefly filled in for Colin Thomas at the Georgia Straight a long time ago. The great Peter Anderson played the Antipholi wearing, alternately, a white Stetson and a black Stetson. Shakespeare’s source material for The Comedy of Errors was the Menaechmi written by the Roman playwright Plautus whose twins were from Epidamnus and Syracuse. I mistakenly wrote that Shakespeare’s Antipholi were from Epidamnus – not Ephesus – and Syracuse. Realizing my mistake before the review went to press, I made a frantic call to someone at the Straight who corrected – sort of – my mistake but wrote “Ephesuf” and Syracuse. A comedy of errors indeed.]