The Comedy of Errors

Overview

The STC Education program's presentation of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors is funny. Making the most of Shakespeare’s wit, director Charmian Gradwell, has the fresh-faced Residents (STC's resident company of young-ish actors) slapstick around a clever cardboard Ephesus in full and happy command of the text.

Two sets of identical twins — one set the masters, the other their servants — are separated at birth. The masters, Antipholus of Syracuse (Brett Stiller) and Antipholus of Ephesus (Tahki Saul) have, with their respective servants both called Dromio, made their way through separate lives without their brothers. As luck or fate would have it, Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse arrive in Ephesus where they are repeatedly mistaken for Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus. So identical are these sets of twins that master and servant cannot tell their true servant or master from the false. And so everyone is doubly duped, though the Dromios fare the worst — beaten and battered for being only themselves. Antipholus of Ephesus' wife Adrianna (Alice Ansara) finds herself with two husbands — or none, if her sister Luciana (Sophie Ross), who accepts overtures of love from with Antipholus of Syracuse thinking he is her sister's husband, would have it — and Antipholus of Syracuse is showered with gifts while is his brother believes himself robbed. And so it goes.

With fat jokes, funny accents, gender swapping, sexual innuendo and drug use, this production has everything it needs to appeal to the school kids that it is intended for. But don't let that put you off (if it did); The Comedy of Errors is completely lightweight and thoroughly entertaining.