The RSC’S back, and it’s on a mission to entertain
Despite being set in 1980s Dubai, the ingenious core of the play remains intact
The Comedy of Errors
Garden Theatre Stratford-upon-avon
★★★★★
It has been 16 long months since the Royal Shakespeare Company did what it’s primarily supposed to do: perform Shakespeare’s plays to paying, in-person audiences. Erstwhile RSC regulars, not to mention the sentimentally inclined, may therefore find themselves rubbing their eyes in disbelief and dabbing away the odd tear as they witness this production of The Comedy of Errors, which had been raring to go in March 2020, and is finally seeing the light of day.
The setting is indeed full of daylight: a temporary (but reusable) outdoor amphitheatre, the “Garden Theatre”, on the lawn beside the Swan. Currently accommodating 310 distanced punters (eventually 500 without restrictions), its seating faces that picturesque, almost Disneypalatial building by the Avon.
Last week, you might have wondered why, given that this well-subsidised Shakespearean bastion has three large auditoria, it wasn’t planning to open any of them up even as the theatre sector was being allowed to go back to full capacity. (The Royal Shakespeare Theatre itself, the main house, will only welcome visitors back in October.)
But the caution of RSC chief Gregory Doran in returning to business as usual has been vindicated, I think, by the Test and-trace-induced setbacks we’ve seen elsewhere. On an idyllic summer evening, it feels as though you’ve more chance of inhaling a midge in the Garden Theatre than catching Covid – and the safety protocols (you’re asked to wear face-masks until you’re seated) are welcome.
If there aren’t great gales of laughter at Phillip Breen’s production, it may be because we’re rusty. (Judging by the night I attended, we need a refresher course in conveying our amusement.) The motor of Shakespeare’s play is timelessly entertaining: a master and servant from Syracuse (Antipholus and Dromio), landing in Ephesus, are mistaken for their identical twins of the same names (long separated). The Syracusans get treated like part of the community, complete with conjugal obligations, and the Ephasian duo become outcasts – but confusion soon spirals, and tempers fray on all sides.
The cast – nine from the original abortive production, and eight newly hired – are so zestful that they hit the ground in a sprint, rather than patiently building momentum. At the start, the mic-testing patter of “one, two” transforms into an a cappella polyphony. As it continues, though, the production gets snagged in making further theatrical use of those microphones. The empty space between two mic-stands denotes the doorway from which Jonathan Broadbent’s clerkish Dromio of Syracuse, newly ensconced in the home of Antipholus of Ephesus, turns away his counterpart, Dromio of Ephesus (Greg Haiste), and the latter’s master (Rowan Polonski). This allows for mirrored frantic gestures by Broadbent and Haiste – neatly pointing up their twinship – but it’s also a distraction from what is usually an uncomplicatedly funny set-piece.
Likewise, two mic-stands delineate the wide dimensions of the “kitchen wench” about whom Broadbent regales his real master (Guy Lewis’s Antipholus of Syracuse). The pair then share Dromio’s irreverent speech “mapping” her body like the world, their joint riff amplified by the mics as though they’re competing at an old-school sexist comedy-club. Again, neat idea, but it overcooks the material.
Some of the sight-gags, such as Hedydd Dylan’s annoyed Ephesian spouse Adrianna and Avita Jay as her sister Luciana disputing while they perform elaborate yoga exercises, are worth the added labour. But even if a few of the comic ornamentals are de trop in a show that flags up the blingy, consumerist nature of repressive Ephesus (modelled on 1980s Dubai), the ingenious core of the piece remains intact – and topical.
This is a dreamscape in which what you’ve taken for granted gets abruptly upended, to nerve-fraying bewilderment. That’s close to home, and be warned: the final, belated reunion of the two sets of brothers, with the two Dromios protractedly hugging, is inexpressibly stirring after the year we’ve had.