Directed by
Janine Watson – Set and Costume Design by Hugh O’Connor
Lighting
Design by Kelsey Lee – Composed and Sound Design by Pru Montin
Canberra
Theatre Centre Playhouse 30th September to 8th October,
2022
Reviewed by
Bill Stephens
With its
increasingly bizarre productions and enthusiastic embrace of gender-blind
casting, it’s hard to escape the impression the Bell Shakespeare has lost
confidence in the ability of Shakespeare’s
plays to interest modern audiences if presented as written.
Janine’s
Watson’s delightfully entertaining production of “The Comedy of Errors” is a
good illustration of this. One of
Shakespeare’s earliest and least complicated plays it relies for its humour on
the complications caused by mistaken identities when two sets of identical
twins, one set both called Antipholus, and the other both called Dromio, find
themselves in the same place at the same time
For her
production Watson has added her own complications by updating the action into
the 1970’s, although the actors still speak in Shakespearean language, casting
some of the roles written for male actors with female actors, including the
role of the Duke (surely now, Duchess) double casting some of the roles, including
one role usually played by a woman but in this production, played by a man.
She then has
her actors play the roles in an exaggerated clownish style with lots of
prat-falls and double-takes. Great fun for the actors and the audience, but
almost impossible for the audience to relate to the actors as actual
characters, rather than caricatures, so that by the end of the play, when the
actors perform the reconciliation scenes realistically for pathos, it’s difficult
to care for them one way or the other; especially if you’re still puzzling as
to why anyone had trouble confusing the two Antipholus’ when one was
sporting a moustache and the other was clean-shaven.
 |
| The company of "The Comedy of Errors" |
It should be
noted that the production looks rather marvellous with Hugh ‘Connor taking full
advantage of the opportunities offered by 1970’s update, to fill the stage with
balloons, fairy-lights and disco balls and clothe the cast in colourful
seventies costumes in which to inhabit his disco settings.
Watson’s
inventive production is awash with good ideas, enhanced by the stylish moves
devised by movement director Samantha Chester and interpreted with enthusiasm
by the cast. It's clever and entertaining,
but at the end one wonders what has been
gained by the gender-blind casting, up-dating, balloons and razzle dazzle.
For those in the audience not particularly interested in exploring nuances achieved by having women in roles written to be played by men, or for that matter, men in roles written for women, there arises the question as to whether this play would have been just as entertaining if presented as Shakespeare wrote it? If so, why wouldn’t Bell Shakespeare present it that way ? If not, what was the point in presenting the play at all?
