REVIEW
The Comedy of Errors
Freewill Shakespeare Festival
Runs until July 15
Heritage Amphitheatre
Hawrelak Park
Tickets: Regular and special occasion. Visit www.freewillshakespeare.com for complete listing
The Freewill Shakespeare Festival’s farce of the season, The Comedy of Errors, is the antithesis of the Bard’s classic tale. Yet it is adventurous as well brilliantly mounted and acted.
Over the years, Shakespeare’s early plays have given rise to experimentation. In some cases, directors are bored with traditional renderings. In other cases, the company wants to attract a different or younger crowd.
Director Dave Horak used his magical touch to create an intriguing mix of past and present without actually tampering with the storyline. The play is set on Stage 30, a concrete-grey back lot of a Hollywood film studio.
Horak kicks off the comedy with a Hooray for Hollywood intro bundled together with a parade of flamboyant characters, whiz-bang costumes and fake backdrops. This pop culture burst of physical and verbal energy sets the tone for the two-hour eye-catching pageantry.
The song shifts fluidly into Shakespeare’s text with a bumbling Keystone Cops chase scene. It is borrowed straight from silent film era’s comedy playbook complete with bewildered stops and sudden hops with no clear reason.
In this frenetic scene, Egeon (Troy O’Donnell), a Syracusian trader has stealthily landed in Ephesus to find his missing son. However, there are open hostilities between Syracuse and Ephesus. Egeon is arrested during the frantic Keystone Cops scene and sentenced to death unless he can pay a fine.
In different quarters, the intrepid Antipholus (Kristi Hansen) of Syracuse and his servant Dromio (Ashley Wright) also dock in Ephesus, completely unaware their identical twins reside here.
In a conga line of mistake identities, misunderstandings, miscommunication and misadventures, the comedic plots and subplots spin out of control into a rollicking adventure.
A large chunk of humour comes from a revival of cross-gender casting popular during the Elizabethan era. Its hilarity is particularly evident during the many romantic scenes spiced heavily with seduction and bewilderment.
Much of the success of gender fluidity is in large part due to Horak’s vision and the skill of nuanced actors such as Hansen and Belinda Cornish as the feisty Antipholus of Ephesus.
Hansen and Cornish's individual acting style, experience and comedic timing hit the nail on the head. They use broad facial and body gestures and calculated innuendo to make us laugh and propel the action.
One of the play’s highlights is a five-minute scene with Jesse Gervais as the unconventional Dr. Pinch, a character that immediately brings to mind the mad Dr. Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Show. In his bold dance tinged with arrogance, Gervais commanded a spectacular round of applause.
Tying all the scenes together is a patchwork score of the American hit parade ranging from Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall In Love) to Are You Lonesome Tonight.
This production showcases vibrant cheeky costumes, a flexible multi-tiered set, nimble actors with a deft facility for languages. In addition, they receive a serious workout through the brilliant mix of Vaudeville pratfalls, slapstick and nimble athleticism.
Thanks to a director with vision, imaginative actors with a facility for dialogue and a script filled with double entendres, it’s a virtual guarantee theatregoers will leave with a smile.
The Comedy of Errors runs odd days as well as Saturday and Sunday matinees until July 15 at Hawrelak Park's Heritage Amphitheatre
