More than 400 years after its first publication, William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors continues to entertain and confound audiences. The Marin Shakespeare Company’s daring, all-female production runs through September 15 outdoors at Dominican University of California’s Forest Meadows Amphitheatre.
Why “bold”? In Shakespeare’s time, women were forbidden to perform on English stages. It was considered improper and immoral, although they did perform in other European countries. The Marin Shakespeare Company turns this injustice on its head by presenting the Bard’s comedy with an all-female cast that provides an informative introduction by reciting some decrees and moral statements from a 17th-century English monarch.
This explanatory introduction was preceded by a purely acoustic, almost Renaissance-like cover of Metallica’s “The Unforgiven” as the concertgoers took their seats – a brilliant piece of music programming by sound designer Ben Euphrat.
Shakespeare’s comedies usually benefit from reading a plot summary. They often involve shipwrecks, twins separated at birth, mistaken identities, debts, and various kinds of arbitrary and inconvenient deadlines. The Comedy of Errors is full of such tropes, including two shipwrecks, two sets of twins, and characters with the same names—Dromio of Ephesus and Dromio of Syracuse, for example.
It’s not clear whether repeated readings of the plot would help audiences with this production. The story is grim and incomprehensible, but the performances are dynamic and entertaining, even when it’s not clear who is who or who owes what or why – there’s a common thread throughout the show about 40 ducats owed for a gold chain, then 400, then 500. The characters seem to grasp this, even if the audience doesn’t.
Directed by Michael Gene Sullivan, who is currently starring in his own production of “American Dreams” with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the wacky action includes plenty of forced puns while running up the stairs, lots of quick costume changes – sometimes just a hat change – and some cutscenes that are, frankly, funnier than anything the Bard put into his script.
The second act begins with a song and dance sketch by two actors on the story of the Three Little Pigs, and later there follows a longer piece in which each of the eight actors performs a death scene from one of Shakespeare’s tragedies – “Et tu, Brute?”, “Goodnight, sweet prince” and so on. This and a rollicking sword fight in swirling skirts involving most of the cast are highlights of the show.
Nina Ball’s imposing, almost monochromatic set is a barrel-maker’s two-story workshop, beautifully realized with an array of old tools – and Tammy Berlin’s beautiful costumes stand out brilliantly. Eponymous characters wear almost identical costumes, especially toward the end of the show, adding to the confusion about who they are or what their job is.
Every compelling story has a dramatic arc – a clear sense of purpose that drives them from here to there – and arcs for main characters that show us how they change through interaction with one another. There is very little of that in this “comedy of errors.” Several people in the audience could be heard grumbling, “Does this show have a plot?”
Answer: sort of. It’s basically a door-slamming farce, a tour de force of high-energy silliness with no sense of resolution. It starts on a high note and stays that level and at that pace for the entire two-plus hours. Imagine the cast of the Marin Shakespeare Company as a female version of the Three Stooges, and you have an idea of what to expect at Forest Meadows. Their onstage antics overwhelm any subtlety of the script, but the performers have a blast with it, and many audience members will, too.
Euphrates’ opening with an all-acoustic version of “The Unforgiven” is mirrored by a similar closer – Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” There couldn’t be a better exit music for a show like this.
Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. He can be reached at [email protected]
When you go
What: “The Comedy of Errors”
Where: Forest Meadows Amphitheater, Dominican University of California, 890 Belle Ave., San Rafael
When: Until September 15th; Thursdays to Saturdays 7:30 p.m.; Sundays 5:00 p.m.
Permit: 15 to 40 US dollars
Information: 415-499-4485; marinshakespeare.org/tickets
Rating (out of five stars): ★★★
