One of the most well-known pieces by the venerable author William Shakespeare is The Comedy of Errors. The Comedy of Errors narrates about two sets of identical twins, one pair of which are servants and the other pair masters. Due to circumstances that are too unbelievable to imagine, twins who were split at birth are later reunited as adults in a port city where one twin has a master and servant, and the others are new arrivals. The specific performance chosen to examine Shakespeare’s masterpiece is a modernized version of his comedy by Phillip Breen. The 1980s provide the setting for Phillip Breen’s play, which is very humorous and furthermore reflects on larger concerns about authenticity and identity.
The play expertly blended it all; the concepts and delivery are brilliant. The performance takes place at the Lydia & Manfred Gorvy Garden Theatre, the company’s outdoor performance area with both natural and artificial lighting. The outfits, which draw their inspiration from the 1980s, look overly modern and colorful in light of Shakespeare’s original vision. The defining act of Phillip Breen’s adaptation of The Comedy of Errors featured waiters with comedic mustaches, aerobics dances from the 1980s, and an onstage cappella chorus performing amazing Paddy Cunneen original songs. Additionally, in Breen’s recounting, the narrative shifts from the Greek city of Ephesus to an unknown place in the Middle East or North Africa. The paper bags, a microphone drop, yoga, earphones, a facemask, and hand sanitizer undoubtedly revise the original play, but this keeps the performance up to date.
Given that the actors deliver their best in their performances and the plot is absurd by anyone’s measures, the overall mood is one of pure amusement. The more modern setting, which underlines the ridiculous nature of the plot, sets the tone for this. According to Sohmer (2018), Shakespeare’s plays are full of verses, situations, and unexpected narrative twists that confuse even the most ardent theatergoer and the most passionate observer. The promise of greater subtlety and complexity that is anticipated with modern theatre exists owing to the formal attire and location.
This performance makes it easier to comprehend the original tale of how the twins were separated from their father. The play opens with a brilliantly produced narration of how Egeon, played by Antony Bunsee as an elderly bereaved father, lost his young twin boys when their ship capsized in a storm. The underlying identity complex topic, which projects the major lesson of the original narrative, is what shines out throughout the performance. Shakespeare’s fascination with the gullibility of perception and the brittleness of identity is introduced through the various misunderstandings that are caused by the absurd introduction of identical twin masters and identical twin slaves (Ryan, 2020). Such identity paradox can be revealed, for instance, in the scene where a man is prohibited from entering his home since he is already having dinner with his spouse indoors.
The playwright effortlessly implements the essentials of dramatic components and emotional appeal in order to touch the audience. My understanding of the dramatic story aspects arose as a result of my close examination of the performance. The play distinguishes itself through the audience’s perception of the character’s actions and situations as well as through thematic investigation. The way Breen skillfully tied the imaginary people into the plot of the play, captured my interest and intrigued me throughout the acts. After careful examination, I came to the conclusion that the play is about the fragility of the self and how easily and drastically we may lose ourselves when we lose connection with others. Despite our greatest efforts to deceive ourselves, it is about how near we can be to absolute chaos.
References
Sohmer, S. (2018). Shakespeare for the wiser sort. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press. Web.
Ryan, K. (2020). Shakespeare’s comedies. Zaltbommel, Netherlands: Van Haren Publishing.