Quadruple conundrums abound in this physical and slapstick fun night out in the big bad city.
“Am I myself?” is the question asked by two sets of separated twins – masters (each called Antipholus) and servants (both Dromios) out and about in the same town of Ephesus. The out-of-towner is mistaken for the home-grown one – who is married and late home for dinner. It’s one big gag stringing out the whole story – how will the confusion be reconciled?
Tight casting of only 10 actors in this State Theatre Company of SA/Bell Shakespeare co-production means some unholy doubling up of roles but thankfully each of the principals is robustly and physically individual.
Antipholus of Syracuse (Adelaide favourite Nathan O’Keefe) and Antipholus of Ephesus (Septimus Caton) match well and are pleasurable to watch. The servants are also fun, particularly Renato Musolino’s Syracusean Dromio, whose gestures are disarmingly endearing. So, too, do the gestures of Elena Carapetis’s Adriana deserve mention – her personality is so forceful, you could swear you’d met her, and her enunciation is so clear she makes the sentences sound contemporary. And Jude Henshall’s Luciana steals the show with her jiggly scene
The actors playing multiple characters have a tougher time and the clash of roles sometimes detracts – Eugene Gilfedder’s maudlin Egeon sucks oxygen off the stage (as does the unpleasant smell of his Dr Pinch’s burning beard that lingers in the stalls), and although Suzannah McDonald’s Courtesan displays her features winningly, the lisp of her Emelia is stale.
The set opener is a stunner and the doors are wickedly multi-purpose, although their banging back and forth could be cut by a third – too much swinging! Nearly everything about the props is brilliant: certain large items are surely unexpected. What doesn’t work, however, is the reality of vomit on stage that lasts so long it distracts. Every why should hath a wherefore, and the selfie could successfully have been shot with imagination.
Shakespeare’s gaping plot hole is why one brother would go searching for a twin and not wonder why he is taken for him, and the production costuming logic hole is why the goldsmith wearing so much bling cannot pay his debt with one of his own chains. But these are not impediments to mar the mirth in this production.
This co-production of The Comedy of Errors will be a smash – see it now until July 14 at the Dunstan Playhouse or catch it thereafter on its country tour.
