2007-06-04
The Comedy of Errors
It's that time of year again - I've gone to Stratford Festival for my yearly play once again. This year, Uncle Jay and I saw The Comedy of Errors at the Avon Theatre. What can I say? It was absolutely fabulous.
It was the first play that we saw on a "regular" stage - i.e. no apron or thrust stage in sight, which is, at the Festival, essential to the action. However, it really worked nicely - the set remained throughout the entire play, with small changes, whereas at the Festival theatre, the set is brought on by actors for each scene, and usually consists of tables and chairs, topiaries, and small objects that one or two actors are able to carry. It was really neat in that sense to see it differently set up.
They added a lot of sound effects to make it almost cartoony - i.e. a character punches someone and there's that punching noise, or they fall and it has some sort of "boing" noise, and whatnot. They also had a dog chase after a robotic cat, and the dog was real - he showed up a number of times. Richard Monette also inserted a number of "outside lines" - i.e. "We're not in Kansas anymore" and played with a lot more physical comedy than I had anticipated. Antipholus of Syracuse had a very Marilyn Monroe moment when his skirt was blown up by a fan, Dromio of Syracuse was incredible in his physicality, and generated a lot of laughs. It was just generally very pleasing.
They also inserted a number of funny things that the Toronto Star critic didn't like, but I quite enjoyed: the doomed father repeatedly carries a sign saying "My end is near" and then near the end flips the sign to reveal a picture of Richard Monette (who leaves the position of Artistic Director of the Festival after 14 years), a camel crosses the stage with the sign "Brought to you by "my One and Only" here until ..." and so forth. The one part I didn't understand was the penguin who crossed the stage with a sign on his back "For the Critics". Oh well.
Richard Monette made a few interesting choices with the characters as well, which just made it plain funny. Balthasar was endlessly high, and even had his own dance sequence with some greek flavour mixed with some disco business. It was entertaining to see him going "Whoa DUUUUUUDE!" in the middle of a Shakespearean play. It definitely gave the play a whole different feel, but was really hilarious. They also had a number of musical sequences when they arranged Shakespearean monologues or dialogues into song - sometimes complete with hat and dancing cane. It was very remarkable to see the two Dromios (long lost twin brothers) sing together, and with fantastic pitch and tone even!
I should leave it at that though - it was one of the best plays that we have seen at Stratford Festival (others being Macbeth and Taming of the Shrew, I believe), and it was well worth the initial trouble of finding parking at all of the bus parking and limited parking lots. I'll be off now - I'm working again today and I'd like to relax with some 7th Heaven for a bit before it's back onto my feet!
p.s. for a video, click here
kitkat87 at 10:51 a.m.