CHICAGO—After 37 years as artistic director of the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Barbara Gaines has directed all of Shakespeare’s 28 plays. She is now retiring, but her last production is not one of the Bard’s tragedies or histories, but a laugh-out-loud farce.
In her good-bye production, Gaines is revisiting “The Comedy of Errors,” which she directed 15 years ago. This time, though, she has added even more mischief to Shakespeare’s late-16th-century comedy. She has revived it as a play within a play, adding a more modern frame to Shakespeare’s work.
The plot in which twin brothers and their twin slaves, divided at birth, cause a series of confusions, mishaps, and mayhem remains the same. But, this time, “The Comedy of Errors” has been enhanced with additional scenes that have been written by Second City’s artistic associate Ron West. It is placed on a 1940’s British movie set during World War II, as a troupe of actors try to make a film of Shakespeare’s comedy in order to provide comic relief for the troops.
This reimagined “Comedy of Errors” not only makes it easier for modern audiences to appreciate but adds extra layers of humor to the original play. “The Comedy of Errors,” written early in Shakespeare’s career and taken from the plot of Roman playwright Plautus’s “The Menaechmi” or “The Twin Brothers,” is a silly mad-cap frolic and therefore a simple crowd-pleasing work. After all, although Shakespeare is considered the greatest playwright of all time, he was a very commercial writer who wanted to bring audiences to the theater.
Perhaps that lighthearted aspect of the play explains why it was adapted into the 1938 Broadway Rodgers-and-Hart musical “The Boys from Syracuse” as well as the hilarious 1970 film “Start the Revolution Without Me,” starring Gene Wilder and set in revolutionary France.
World War II Hollywood
The story begins as the elderly Egeon (a terrific performance by Greg Vinkler) from Syracuse comes ashore in Ephesus. He is sentenced to die unless he can come up with money to ransom himself by nightfall. Egeon tells the story of how he lost his wife and one of their identical twins together with their servants. Although that sounds like a sad beginning to a comedy, that scene is accompanied by some of the funniest slapstick moments in the play.
That preface then goes on to follow a loony cast of egotistic, eccentric actors who have come together to film “The Comedy of Errors.” Using a Hollywood-style backdrop of cameras and fake screens by scenic designer James Noone and colorful costumes by Mika van der Ploeg, the concept makes for a zany amusement.
In crafting the play, Gaines has brought in many of the same actors who were in her earlier production, and these same extraordinary talents shine once again in this revival. Here we see Ross Lehman as Dudley Marsh, the film’s director, and also as Dromio of Syracuse. Lehman, who is one of the most compelling comedic performers, once again is a treasure to behold.
Playing the narcissistic Lord Brian Halifax is charismatic Kevin Gudahl, who feels it is beneath his stature as a lord to play the other twin Dromio of Ephesus. Of course, he is persuaded and ends up as a hoot of a counterpoint to Lehman’s Dromio.
Dan Chameroy stands out as celebrity singer Phil Sullivan on leave from the British Navy, so he can play the part of Antipholus of Ephesus with the English troupe. Chameroy is engaging and gets the best laugh of the show when he says that “this Shakespeare crap is hard to memorize.”
The 1940’s nostalgic period in which the comedy is set and the identity mix-ups and shenanigans that propel the show forward make for great escapist entertainment.
Gaines did not want to be remembered only for some of Shakespeare’s darker, more depressing dramas. She wanted to go out on a positive, happy note, and with this playful, whimsical “The Comedy of Errors” she has wonderfully succeeded.
