Category | Arts & Living

Play makes audience laugh until they hurt

Published on October 26, 2009 by Heather Cook

KSU’s Theater and Performance Studies department presented Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors” Oct. 21-25. Directed by Harrison Long, the performance ran about 90 minutes with a ton of laughter and an array of falling chickens.

“This is our only Shakespeare title for the semester and the year,” said John Gentile, chair of the department of Theater and Performance Studies. “The department works assiduously to feature the works of a variety of excellent writers-including established writers such as August Wilson, Flannery O’Connor, Herman Melville, Samuel Beckett and Brian Friel as well as new emerging talents. The most recent Shakespeare title we produced in our season before this one was ‘As You Like It’ in 2005, also directed by Professor Long.”

“To people who really don’t know Shakespeare, there is this idea that his plays are all stuffy, high-brow, ‘Ren-Festy’ and ‘Ye Olde.’  Nothing could be farther from the truth, especially with this production,” Long said. “If you’re expecting tights and English accents, you’re going to be disappointed.  If you want to laugh until you hurt, you’ll be happy you came.  If you like classic movies like ‘Casablanca’ or the Bing Crosby/Bob Hope ‘Road Movies,’ you’ll love this production. Also, if you’re a Beavis and Butthead fan, this is right up your alley, so to speak.”

“The Comedy of Errors” is about two sets of identical twins who were separated at birth. Antipholus and Dromio from Syracuse go to Ephesus, where the other set of Antipholus and Dromio lives. Because the two are twins, a lot of errors happen with mistaken identity. In the end, everything comes to a happy conclusion and the two sets of twins are not only reunited with their parents, but also with each other.

The play contained a lot of interesting spectacles such as the falling rubber chickens, the heavy use of a fog machine, a crazy conjurer who was familiar with Kanye West and Omar Sidiqi, who played Dromio’s mistress, in drag.

Preparation for the production began two years ago when Long taught a class on physical comedy with clown Vincezo Tortorici. Long then taught this past spring with classical actress Cynthia Barrett in an advanced acting Shakespeare course. These two experiences inspired Long to choose Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors.”

“Professor Long proposed this title for our season,” said Gentile. “He brings to this project his expertise in performing Shakespeare and his love of comedy.”

Auditions for the play began this past May and students analyzed the lines over the summer. A number of the cast members actually traveled to Morocco in the summer, which contributed to the members’ ability to place themselves in the setting of the play, “Casablanca,” which Long chose.

“Sort of by coincidence, we decided to set this production in 1939 Casablanca, like in the Bogart film,” Long said. “I wasn’t consciously thinking about the fact that many of the actors would actually go there over the summer. While in Morocco, the company conducted ethnographic research with local graduate students.  That has been an exciting element of our preparation because the students returned with firsthand knowledge of the culture and the people. What a huge advantage.”

In July, three days were devoted to rehearsal of the play and staging of the play began during the first week of this fall semester.

“We have rehearsed five days a week for the last eight weeks or so,” Long said. “It’s a lot of work but it has really paid off.  On his death bed, the great comic playwright, George Bernard Shaw was asked if dying was hard.  He replied, ‘Death is easy. Comedy… comedy is hard!’ He was right! But, by George, I think we’ve got it!”