The Comedy of Errors
by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s Globe
14th July 2023, 19.30
The Globe’s absurd alphabetical credits are ignored here. You don’t bung the director in mid-list with “Facilitator- Inclusion and Belonging.”
Directed by Sean Holmes
Designed by Paul Willis
Composer- Grant Olding
CAST
In my order of plot importance.
Michael Elcock- Antipholus of Syracuse
Matthew Broome- Antipholus of Ephesus
Jordan Metcalf – Dromio of Syracuse
George Fouracres – Dromio of Ephesus
Laura Hanna – Adriana
Jessica Whithurst- Luciana
Philip Cumbus – Duke of Ephesus / Pinch
Claire Benedict- Abbess
Paul Rider- Egeon
Aamira Challenger – Dock Worker
Davif Jitl- Officer
Hari MacKinnon – Angelo
Phoebe Naughton – Courtesan / First Merchant / Balthazar
Danielle Phillips – Luce / Second Merchant / Messenger
MUSIC
Magnus Mehta- percussion
Tom Harrison – recorder / cornet
Hilary Belsey – recorder / sackbut
Emily Baines- recorder / Shawn
Sarah Humpreys- recorder / shawn
It was written the year Shakespeare’s own twins, Hamnet and Judith, were born. Well, probably. He took the plot from Plautus, and doubled the twins.
For the Globe, it is an elaborate set. The back walls are clad with wood panels to look like a dock, there’s a jetty, barrels and ropes and a ship’s bowsprit jutting out from one side of the galleries. Surprisingly they stayed minimalist with Adriana’s house and the Abbey, and the closed door for each was a simple saloon bar door. It was a lost opportunity given the inner stage and balcony.
Also, wisely, it’s brightly costumed Elizabethan / Jacobean. Other productions elsewhere have gone modern (which really helps the female roles) or Turkish Oriental. It’s the Globe. Costume matches the building, Around us were American and Japanese voices and that’s what people expect to see on what might be their single visit to the Globe. It doubles as a tourist attraction. I’m glad they have dispensed with the rag-tag dressing-up box, ‘wear what you like’ costumes of the early Michelle Terry regime. Costume was good.
They’re running it at one hour 45 minutes without an interval. It is the shortest Shakespeare play, but then we had had a bottle of wine and two carafes of water in the Swan restaurant (probably the best theatre restaurant of all), we’re aged, and also even in our favoured back row of the lower gallery with a wall to lean against, you do feel like stretching after an hour or so. It was Friday night so it was packed solid which helps the atmosphere. It rained, and at one point heavily, and the cast made good polished use by referencing it, stressing lines about water.
It is the closest play to farce, and it was played BIG, or rather EXTREMELY BIG . That has its virtues. Philip Cumbus’ superb basckground reactions as the Duke of Ephesus took us through Egeon’s long introduction amusingly, while Egeon’s telling the shipwreck back-story, which is always a hard part of the play. They preceded it with an added beheading scene, very well done too, to show the fate of unwelcome visitors to the city. Then Ephesus was introduced by a major rough and tumble fight scene, even before our wandering duo from Syracuse arrived – by boat through the audience.
There are more photos of the extraneous fight on the Globe site than of anything else. I see the temptation. It was marvellous stuff and must have required a great deal of precision rehearsal. I also never worked out which one was doubling as the uncredited executioner, but I suspect it was Antipholus II.
The large woman took everyone apart, with kicks and punches, was very funny indeed, and I expected her to appear as Nell, the cook, chasing Dromio of Syracuse, but she didn’t. I assume she was ‘dock worker.’ As she hadn’t appeared as Nell, I even wondered if she’d had a backstage accident, but no, Nell is not listed in the programme. Perhaps they thought Dromio’s line about her being big, like the Globe, was too apposite to squash with a real person. It got the expected laugh.
Before the play started, Philip Cumbus (as the Duke) explained that Laura Hanna, as Adriana, the lead female role, had missed two days with a broken bone and would be performing in a surgical boot with NHS crutches. That got her deserved major applause on entry, and I must say for her first show back, she made brilliant use of the crutches, pointing, stabbing and whacking people. I remember when an actor had to use crutches at the RSC and they turned up some antique wooden ones, but those are no doubt unhealthy and unsafe.
Adriana and Luciana (Jessica Whithurst) made the most of being a winning female double act. Luciana did the appalled physical reactions to Antipholus’s chat up lines (she believes he’s her brother-in-law) which were hilarious, and later she did some major prostrating on stage too. They’re intrinsically good roles and both made the most of them, without the major advantages modern dress bestows on the women in other productions. It was all Elizabethan dress.
Special mention too of Michael Elcock as Antipholus of Syracuse – or Antipholus I – who reacted with the audience and played the crowd very well indeed. Both Antipholus were good and like the Dromios, certainly looked alike enough to be puzzling. I’m not even sure in the photos on the Globe’s Photo Gallery which is which. Later, Philip Cumbus played Dr Pinch, which was a memorable version, with a major cod-piece, then topped it when he reverted to the Duke in the last act, by grimacing and reacting to the others’ physical descriptions of Dr Pinch.
Given the added beheading and the long added fight scene, neither in the original, I was surprised at how weak the Adriana’s house scenes were. Antipholus of Syracuse has been mistaken for his twin brother and invited in to ‘dinner’ by Adriana. It’s usually done with him emerging afterwards, clothes in disarray, lipstick on his cheeks. Clearly ‘dinner’ had been a vigorous bedroom event. Not here. They also didn’t have Nell chasing Dromio, or dragging him back in. The ‘locked out’ Antipholus of Ephesus return was milder than normal. At the end, the ‘I have two husbands’ line was surprise, not salacious anticipation. The courtesan scene lacks its usual sexiness. It was throughout the ‘unsexy’ version to a remarkable degree.
As a farce , it’s ideal Globe outdoor knockabout material and got a huge reception from the crowd. You have to wonder why the Globe don’t do it more often – they’ve done the Dream four times in a decade, but this just twice. The slapstick was literally the best part as both Dromios were slapped loudly around the face repeatedly. That required great timing from the percussionist above. At times it veered just too far into broad comedy. I thought the tiny second merchant was channeling Wee Jimmy Krankie and the result was too Monty Pythonesque. There was too much high-pitched hooting all round. Having women in male roles (yet again) doesn’t help.
As a director, Sean Holmes is very good at drawing surprising, natural-sounding comedy from the lines, (an emphatic Sir becomes a running joke, for example) and very good at accompanying movement business, but articulating Shakespeare’s language clearly is not his priority. George Fouracres as Dromio of Ephesus spoke way too fast and lost many of his lines altogether in high speed gabble. He seemed to calm down later. Paul Rider as Egeon and Clare Benedict as the Abbess- the two straight parts – demonstrated how to articulate clearly, as did Philip Cumbus.
The ending got the anticipated ‘Aaah!’ as the Dromios walked off together. This is an essential moment. It worked. They milked the build up well.
You can’t argue audience reaction all the way through. For a farce it got everything the cast would desire. Great entertainment. However, it was weak on the salacious undercurrents. The thing is, I have seen much better, which got the comedy, but also somewhat more – namely the National Theatre in 2012 with Lenny Henry, and the RSC outdoor version in 2021. Then again the Globe is doing a different job than other major theatres, bringing populist Shakespeare alive for visitors as a tourist attraction. But in the past it still did that, but was also presenting a strong original version of the plays. Three stars under-represents the audience’s delight, but it is a comparative score with past fives.
***
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
4 star
Miriam Gillison, The Guardian ****
Kirsten Grant, Telegraph ****
Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out ****
Tim Bano, The Standard ****
Daily Mail ****
The Times ****
Broadway World ****
3 star
Dave Fargnoli, The Stage ***
LINKS ON THIS BLOG
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
- Comedy of Errors NT 2012
- Comedy of Errors RSC ’12
- Comedy of Errors – Globe 2014
- Comedy of Errors – RSC Garden Theatre 2021
SEAN HOLMES (Director)
The Winter’s Tale – Wanamaker & Globe 2023
Twelfth Night, Globe 2021 & broadcast
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Globe 2019
A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Filter 2011
JORDAN METCALFE
Jack Absolute Flies Again, National Theatre, 2022
Eyam – Globe 2018
The Winter’s Tale, Globe 2018
The Hypocrite, RSC 2017
POSH, Salisbury Playhouse, 2015
GEORGE FOURACRES
Twelfth Night, Globe 2021 & broadcast
PHILIP CUMBUS
Macbeth- Wanamaker 2018
Richard III, Trafalgar Studio 2014 (Earl of Richmond)
‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore, Wanamaker Playhouse 2014, (Vasquez)
The Importance of Being Earnest (with David Suchet), 2015 (Algernon)
First Light, Chichester 2016 (Max Henderson)
Comus, Wanamaker Playhouse, 2016 (Henry Lawes)
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Donmar, 2017
CLAIRE BENEDICT
All’s Well That Ends Well – RSC 2022
Richard III, RSC 2022 (Duchess of York)
PAUL RIDER
A Woman of No Importance – Classic Spring, 2017
The Tempest, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, 2016
Measure for Measure, Globe
Julius Caesar, Globe
Knight of The Burning Pestle, Globe.
The Duchess of Malfi, Wanamaker
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