By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
In presenting Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors” the Bowling Green High School Drama Club has condensed it to its silliest.
Cast of “Comedy of Errors” acts out shipwreck.
The plot involves the unlikely meeting of two sets of identical twins leading to humor from slapstick to clever wordplay. Think Groucho Marx joins the Three Stooges. Directed by Jo Beth Gonzalez, the play has been edited into version that runs about an hour with the tastiest bits left in.
“The Comedy of Errors” opens tonight (Nov. 1) at 7 p.m. in the BG Performing Arts Center, continuing at the same time and place Friday and Saturday. Tickets are $7 and $5 for adults.
The play, set in the 1960s, opens with the trial of Egeus (Hailey Kozey), a merchant for Syracuse, captured in Ephesus, which is off-limits to traders from his city.
In pleading his case to the duke (Lauren Clifford), he tells his sad tale of family separation. In a shipwreck many years before he and his twin son Antipholus and the infant purchased as the son’s servant, Dromio,, also a twin, were parted from his wife and the other twins, who have the same names. Don’t ask. It’s Shakespeare.
Terra Sloane as Antipholus of Syracuse
Now the Syracuse Antipholus (Terra Sloane) with the Syracuse Dromio (Charlotte Perez) have gone off to find their lost siblings, and the father has gone off seeking them, and they’ve unbeknownst to each other all landed in Ephesus. And Ephesus just happens to be where the lost siblings they are seeking live. That’s just the start.
Now with the Syracuse twins set loose on the street of Ephesus — which seems about the size of Bowling Green given the way people just happen to run into each other — all manner of high jinks ensue.
Now this involves a high degree of suspension of disbelief for the audience who are seated close up and personal on the stage. Antipholus of Ephesus (Maddy Depinet) and Dromio of Ephesus (Hudson Pendleton) bear no resemblance to their Syracuse counterparts. Yet no one, master nor friend, nor even wife, can tell them apart. Must be because they’re dressed alike.
Antipholus of Ephesus (Maddy Depinet) argues with merchant played by Allison Nonnemaker.
So when Syracuse Antipholus sends his servant off to squirrel away some money, and he meets the Ephesus Dromio he’s angry that the servant has not a clue of what he’s talking about.
And he beats him about the head.
All this is reported back to Antipholus of Ephesus’ wife Adrianna (Olivia Strang) who goes off and hauls back the wrong twin. Now this twin is not much taken with his supposed “wife,” but does quite like her sister Luciana (Sophi Hachtel).
Adrianna (Olvia Strang) collapses into the arms of her sister played by Sophi Hachtel.
At this point one thing is clear: It’s good these “twins” don’t resemble each other because otherwise the confusion would be impenetrable. Sloane’s character even asks an audience member to pinch her to make sure she’s not dreaming.
All this is played for laughs. Yes, the father languishes in prison facing execution if he can’t pay his fine, but we know this is a comedy and somehow all this will come to a neat conclusion that’s as improbable as all that went before.
The cast, which also includes Fran Flores, Katie Partlow, and Allison Nonnemaker, seems to have a great time with all this. They enunciate Shakespeare’s verse with aplomb.
They’ll have the audience, seated within pinching distance, hanging on every word.
