"The Company Rep's Comedy of Errors is simply irresistible."
by Travis Michael Holder, Entertainment Today, May 23, 2003
Not only is the work of William Shakespeare the most enduring of all theatrical literature; in interpretation and design, if not language, it is the most approachable. I have seen Shakespeare performed with helicopters and video screens, staged all-naked, reset in the deep south in Civil War days and, of course, turned into the tale of a punk kid named Tony meeting his Maria at the dance at the gym. There have proven to be endless innovative opportunities to update the Bard's familiar classics.
What director Hope Alexander set out to do with her imaginative new mounting of The Comedy of Errors was to make Shakespeare's formidable language accessible to a young audience raised on Nickelodeon, sitcom families and Sponge Bob Square Pants. What Alexander's The Company Rep has accomplished is just that. This Comedy takes place in a cartoony 1950s TV set setting, created and painted by the children of Peace4Kids, dedicated to changing the lives of inner-city children. Even at the beginning, it features a hilarious movie-within-a-play video accompanying Egeon's famous monologue (a Santa Claus-y Tony Burton), waggishly explaining the mixing of two sets of identical twins that makes this the first farce of all time.
As Egeon spins his yarn about the twins separated in a shipwreck, stock footage of some 1940s Titanic B-movie is interspersed with Mad TV-like visuals to leave you rolling in the aisles. To add to the fun in this saga of mistaken identities, the supposedly indistinguishable twins Dromio of Ephesus and Dromio of Syracuse are played by a small blond Chris Kattan clone (Stephen Brewster) and a tall black guy (Brandon Ford Green, who gives the evening's most infectious performance). Thank god costumer Esther Blodgett (the former Maria-Leonova Ossipoff… or is it?) adds matching red baseball caps with “Dromio” plastered across the front, in case anyone doesn't get the gag. Whomever [Alexander] the mysterious [Alexander] Miss Blodgett [Alexander] really may be [Alexander], with her whimsical costuming, a star is born.
Alexander directs a game and talented company whom, though sometimes a tad uneven in proficiency with their craft, are charming and great fun to watch wherever they may be in their individual stage of experience. Melanie Ewbank is especially memorable as a Sally Struthers-esque Adriana (I can see her sobbing uncontrollably in some footage shot in a third-world village or reading that old list of career opportunities), and both Joe Garcia and John Edwin Shaw are a treat as those other twins, Antipholis.
The Company Rep's Comedy of Errors is simply irresistible. It's like one of those sweet summer divertissements at Theatricum-Botanicum, where young hopefuls and seasoned veterans cavort together in blissful harmony, without the rocks and trees or any of those giant moths. And at the American Renegade Theatre, you won't even need to bring your own cushion. Call (818) 506-7550 for tickets.