Comedy's twins draw laughs

BAILA LAZARUS EDITOR

Those theatre lovers who enjoy a good Shakespearean mistaken-identity plot will get more than their fill at this year's Bard on the Beach. Not only does The Comedy of Errors offer the standard right-person-in-the-wrong-place scenario, it dishes up two sets of identical twins where each set has the same names.

So you have Antipholus of Syracuse looking for his long-lost brother, Antipholus of Ephesus; while their servants, Dromio of Syracuse and Dromio of Ephesus are in search of each other as well. Confusion is the result as Antipholus of one region connects with "his" servant Dromio who is actually from the other region.

Needless to say, having two sets of twins where each twin has the same name as his brother, makes for easy mistaken-identity gags. In one scene, Antipholus of Syracuse gives some gold to one Dromio but when the other Dromio appears claiming no knowledge of the gold, Antipholus is frantic. In another, a "greasy" kitchen maid mistakes Dromio of Syracuse (who has less than no interest in her) for her beloved Dromio of Ephesus. What follows is an hilarious account of the incident by Dromio of Syracuse in which he describes all the countries he found in Nell's "rotund" body.

Throughout the play, various permutations of mistaken identity are used to increase the characters' confusion and advance the plot. The married Adriana believes her hus- band, Antipholus of Ephesus, to be crazy after she has dinner with Antipholus of Sy-racuse, thinking that it's her real husband, only to have the real husband claim he has no knowledge of ever dining with her. Luciana's sister thinks her brother-in-law is making a pass at her, when it's really Antipholus of Syracuse who's the culprit.

The show continues in the same vein with more and more characters being drawn into the mix of puzzlement and exasperation. The stress in each of the characters grows until two of the four twins are bound and put in a dark room to cure them of their derangement. (The only grave note in an otherwise comical farce.) Of course, as in all of the Bard's work, the characters don't remain in their state of bewilderment; all is revealed in the typical Shakespearean way.

But "Who's on First?" comedy has its limits and, often, such writing alone isn't enough to garner a laugh. Thankfully, Allan Zinyk, playing Dromio of Syracuse, takes on the role of a hapless jester (one in every Shakespearean comedy), drawing belly laughs from the audience.

Other strong performances come from Alex Ferguson as Antipholus of Syracuse and David Mackay as Dromio of Ephesus. The Jewish community's own Rebecca Auerbach is also in the play as the parlormaid Luce.

Comedy isn't the only thing that makes this play endearing. Running alongside the plot of mistaken identity is the theme of finding lost loves or new ones. While we smile at the characters' misfortunes of communication, ultimately, we begin to care that these lost souls will find each other (and especially that the kitchen maid, Nell, will be reunited with the right Dromio).

A few drawbacks do exist in this play, which happens to be Shakespeare's shortest: first, there's a little more scatalogical humor than normal for Bard writing and, second, Antipholus of Ephesus (or maybe it was Antipholus of Syracuse?) seems to recognize early on in the play the possibility of his twin being alive and the nature of the whole perplexity suddenly dawns on him, but he does nothing about it and seemingly goes about his business as if the possibility never occurred to him. Of course, this helps make the play last for longer than 20 minutes but it's a little bewildering why the moment exists at all.

Regular attendees of Bard on the Beach will be surprised to see the barest stage ever to be found under the white and red tent at Vanier Park. Not a twig, branch, leaf or drape decorates the stage. On one hand, it keeps attention focused on the performance itself but there's nothing like a couple of ivy-clad, "stone" balconies in a Bard on the Beach production to help with the staging and it seemed to be missing.

The Comedy of Errors runs until Sept. 20 at Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival in Vanier Park. Tickets are $16-$27. For information, call 604-739-0559. Also presented this year are The Merchant of Venice, Mark Leiren-Young's Shylock and Pericles, Prince of Tyre.

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