Comedy of Errors – RSC, 2021 | Peter Viney's Blog

Comedy of Errors – RSC, 2021

The Comedy of Errors

William Shakespeare

Royal Shakespeare Company

Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Garden Theatre

Stratford-upon-Avon

Saturday 4 September 2021

13.00 performance

Directed by Phillip Breen

Designed by Max Jones

Composer Paddy Cunneen

CAST

Five understudies, due to the dreaded C word

Egeon, a merchant of Syracuse- Anthony Bunsee
Antipholus of Syracuse- Guy Lewis
Dromio of Syracuse – Jonathan Broadbent
Antipholus of Ephesus- Dyfrig Morris (usually bodyguard)
Dromio of Ephesus- Greg Haiste
Adrianna, wife of Antipholus – Toyin Ayedun-Alase (usually courtesan)
Luciana, her sister – Anita Jay
Luce, Adrianna’s maid- Zoe Lambert (usually Abbess)
Aemilia, an abbess- Zoe Lambert
Solinus, Duke of Ephesus- Nicholas Pradas
First Merchant- Riad Richie
Second Merchant- William Grant
Bodyguard- Alfred Clay (usually Dr Pinch)
Angelo, a goldsmith-Baker Musaka (also dance captain)
Balthasar, a merchant- William Grint (usually second merchant)
Courtesan- Vicky Hall (reading from book)
Doctor Pinch- Nicholas Pradas (also and usually Duke)
Officer- Riad Richie
Waiter (unlisted) – Dyfrig Morris
Shoppers, household (unlisted) – Zoe Lambert and Anthony Bunsee

THE SINGERS

Nearly always onstage, acting as well as singing, and crucial. Looking at the photos, I suspect one of these might be an understudy too.

Soprano – Alex Saunders
Alto- Dunja Botic
Tenor- Dale Harris
Bass – David Jones

We saw a daylight production: This is the theatre at night

This is in Stratford through September then The Barbican for the rest of the year.

Five understudied roles (taking eight parts) is a first for us, but the RSC have always planned for it with special understudy performances. We had wanted to see Hedydd Dylan as Adrianna. There you go. There are so many uncredited background cameos in the play, that the understudies took on eight parts. I would defy anyone without prior knowledge to see the joins.

It’s far too long since we’ve seen The Comedy of Errors… the Globe in 2014, then there was 2012, when we saw it twice in a few weeks, National and RSC. The review of the National Theatre 2012 production (LINK HERE) has more general background notes on the play.

I knew it as an under-rated play by 1966 when we had to compare it with Plautus’ Menaichmus Twins in detail, and do full stage designs and production notes. Shakespeare doubled up on the twins, and improved the wife plot. I have always loved the play, as I mention in other reviews, like Midsummer Night’s Dream I have never failed to be thoroughly entertained by it.

The plot

See the other reviews but this is a memory jogger In brief. Egeon has been arrested as Syracusans are forbidden to enter Ephesus. The Duke asks him for his life story, and he explains that he had twin sons, and also twin bondsmen (basically house slaves). They were shipwrecked. He lost his wife, one son and one slave. He named the survivors with the names of the missing … Antipholus for the son, Dromio for the bondsman. He has spent seven years searching for the lost ones.

Then Antipholus of Syracuse (A of S) and Dromio arrive in Ephesus. The twins are identical, so everyone greets them thinking they’re the other twins … Antipholus of Ephesus and Dromio of Ephesus. A of S gets invited into Antipholus of Ephesus’s house (A of E) by his wife Adrianna. But he holds a torch for her sister, Luciana.

Money and gold chains get bestowed on the wrong people. Confusion is constant.

The theatre

So, it was our first time back at the RSC since the autumn of 2019. We have sorely missed it. We had missed Stratford … but people in the hotel and in favourite shops instantly recognized us.

The Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Garden Theatre has been erected on the gardens next to the Swan Theatre doors of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, and it’s very much the wooden O (well, steel and plastic O). Protocols are different … the theatre complex is only open to ticket holders for an hour before the performance. You book for a block and are assigned seats on arrival … we took the advice to arrive half an hour early and had excellent seats in the third row centre. The rake is steep and the view superb. No heads in the way, even though many wore hats on a sunny day.

We had both assumed that it would be scaled down in some way for the outdoors. Not so. This is a full quality RSC production, and the smaller size makes it more intimate than The Globe. You naturally play differently outdoor, but here they wisely had head mics on every actor and the four or five microphone stands were integrated as vital aspects of the show. The play starts with mic testing ‘One-two …’ that breaks into a song. The sound was crystal clear, but I can see the mics would be essential boosts in rain or wind. It’s also lit, though they have shifted both performances earlier to grab maximum daylight. Because we had been in Lancashire for a few days before, we had booked a hotel the night before, and ate in the RSC restaurant. We went for a walk afterwards and you can hear it clearly from the street (and our hotel garden), and there is one point in the hedge where small groups of passers-by can get a good glimpse of the stage too. It was popular.

Peeping through the hedge: What passers-by could see
Dromio (Jonathan Broadbent), Luciana (Avita Jay), Antipholous (Guy Lewis)

The Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Garden Theatre is a temporary structure, but they had to take up half the ground beneath it and lay stones to support it because it is on the River Avon’s “flood plain” which was under water as recently as 1998 (as well as 1901 and 1932), so much below it was silt. They intend to re-turf the garden afterwards … however, the stone is there. It could be erected again. It did make me think how in the summer tourist season when the two indoor theatres are virtually fully booked, it could be erected again and a comedy could be played every year. One tip – the rake is steep, and the stairs somewhat frightening for older people. A handrail would be good.

The production

The set with Swan Theatre in view behind

The RSC photo gallery obviously shows the production with its original actors.

Phillip Breen’s conception is constant background action. The four vocalists act all the time, standing, leaning, reacting along with the cast. Some of the background ideas seem peripheral to the plot, but every one of them works … making it hard work for the cast, constantly switching to walk ons and background roles in new costumes … that is apart from the three sets of siblings, the Antipholus twins, the Dromio twins and the pair of sisters. Even then the actor playing Antipholus of Ephesus gets a couple of major background roles early on.

The setting is the 80s in costume. A yellow Sports Walkman for Luciana. An 80s JVC video camera for the film crew (I remember them well). I do wish those wide loose Armani-80s trousers would come back into fashion. They so suit a gentleman of fuller figure like myself. 1980s? Yes, that’s forty years ago. Plenty long enough to have a halo of nostalgia. On costumes they had short notice, so every understudy must have a costume ready and fitted. Add the normal extra sets for playing in the rain.

Ephesus is a crossroads here … we have western dress, an Arab in full robes, a robed African. When Egeon appears, he has a shawl over his suit and a faded red baseball cap- the costume looks pointedly Syrian refugee, which fits his wandering role. So 2021 melds into the 1980s here. Solinus, the Duke is in a bright be-medaled dictator uniform, going for Gaddafi in style. His brightly uniformed guard has machetes. The threat of execution for Egeon is ISIS / Taliban level.

The background additions -the scene meeting the merchants initially is a restaurant with the other tables all occupied and reacting. When we first meet Adrianna and Luciana the stage fills with shopping bags and parcels.

The start of the second half has a ribbon across the stage for a ceremony, a giant scissors, a model of a building and a film crew. Antipholus of Ephesus is to perform some sort of ceremony. They’re never referred to, but Anthony Bunsee (Egeon) as a gum chewing boom operator has yet another hilarious cameo (no joke spoilers). The first Dr Pinch scene is a yoga session with Dr Pinch who is now a golden-dressed Indian guru. Anita Jay as Luciana shows some spectacular yoga moves while doing the base conversation.

Then we get simplicity … the locked door to Adriana’s house is just two mic stands, with Dromios either side of it. It’s set as a door by a hotel style key card that fails (with sound effect).

The cast

The photos can be seen in the RSC Photo Gallery – most are of the people who were substituted. Sadly, we have no pictures of Dyfrig Morris and Toyin Ayedun-Alase in their new roles.

Egeon tells his tale which is acted out
William Grint signs the tale (but not elsewhere)

Anthony Bunshee was a moving Egeon, especially when reunited with Aemilia, The Abbess (Zoe Lambert). These were the two shoppers in the background, her in pretty summery frocks with designer bags, him in a grey robe, trudging sadly along with RSC paper bags. Egeon’s first speech, where he has to explain the whole backstory is usually the problem in the play … blink and you lose the plot, but here, seated, threatened by a machete, with a boom mic to speak into, he took it slowly, carefully and pointedly. The backstory was mimed by two actors playing “young Egeon” and “young Aemilia” tied to a mic stand as a mast, with teddy bears representing the children.

Both Dromios: Jonathan Broadbent and Greg Haiste
with the original Antipholus of Ephesus (Rowan Polonski) who was replaced when we saw it

Jonathan Broadbent as Dromio (D of S) introduced the play with a very funny description of the need for understudies and the RSC’s use of understudy rehearsals and performances … ‘some may even be better than the originals’ he quipped. Broadbent is a perfect Shakespearean clown. He is totally relaxed with asides, and breaking script. We first saw him, in Filter’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2011, and he was doing just that. I keep repeating Mark Rylance … that’s what Shakespeare’s clowns must have done. We have surviving texts with jokes which were current and probably changed every time Shakespeare’s company revived the play. Our existing text relates to one copy from one year. Broadbent points this. I won’t spoil them all, but when Vicki Hall appeared as the courtesan, with the book, he said, ‘She’s the third actress playing the part this week!’ Also, there was a ten minutes or more incident when someone was taken ill in the audience and they had to stop the play (it was high up in the top rows too)… not uncommon, in fact. It’s the third or fourth time I’ve seen it happen. Usually a stage manager walks on to announce the pause, but Broadbent immediately took charge from the stage and announced they would be going off and coming back … no hurried radio messages or standing around looking surprised.

Greg Haiste was the twin Dromio (D of E), and they were both the same height, which helps. Together they are as great a pair of Dromios as you will find. The timing when they get beaten by their masters is exemplary, but more so, the four singers accentuate the blows and pain.

Guy Lewis as Antipholus of Syracuse
Hedydd Dylan is Adriana, but she was replaced when we saw it
The multi-ethnic restaurant setting

Guy Lewis played Antipholus of Syracuse with a look of utter bewilderment. The part was made for him. He constantly used hand sanitizer – a lovely running joke. In fact, I cried with laughter when he first met Adrianna and her caressing hand moved below the belt. Best use of hand sanitizer since lockdown. Go and see it. Later the Abbess donned a standard light blue face mask.

So to our wonderful understudies. Dyfrig Morris was outstanding. His height and bulk stretched credulity over being “twins” but we rely on costume and hair (wigs). It’s hard to believe that anyone else ever played the part. When he is arrested by the Officer, it’s a long complicated physical fight, with Luce, the maid intervening … this must have taken a great deal of rehearsal, especially with lines to be delivered during it.

Judging by the photos, the original A of E (Rowan Polonski) also played the waiter as Dyfrig Morris did here. This was such an inventive response to the text, which is one of those intricate and usually dull exchanges:

Dromio: Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the bald pate of Father Time himself.
Antipholus: Lets hear it.
Dromio: There’s no time for a man to recover his hair that grows bald by nature.
Antipholus: May he not do it by fine and recovery?
Dromio; Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig and recover the lost hair of another man.
Antipholus: Why is Time such a niggard of hair, being as it is, so plentiful an excrement?
Dromio: Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beasts; and what he hath scanted men in hair, he hath given them in wit.
Antipholus: Why but there’s many a man hath more hair than wit.
Dromio: Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his hair.
Antipholus: Why thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit …

I had to precis the play once, making cuts as an exercise. (An odd play to do it with, as it’s the shortest of them all.) That’s an immediate cut … it doesn’t propel the story and it’s one of those convoluted clown explanations that never work nowadays … BUT Phillip Breen kept it and turned into a masterly scene, where the whole thing depends on the silent waiter (who is of course not in the original). Then to top it, Jonathan Broadbent and Guy Lewis act as if everything that happens is a surprise and they are “corpsing” – fighting not to laugh. In fact this must be precision timing, acting and rehearsal throughout. On the other hand, the laughing may have been assisted by seeing a different actor playing the waiter who happened to have the right head for it.

Then Toyin Ayedun-Alase has to step up from courtesan to take over as the female lead, Adrianna, from Hedydd Dylan. (In the photos she looks a magnificent courtesan too, in red one piece suit). The programme is important here. Because Hedydd Dylan is pregnant, they built that into the part and story. So Toyin (excuse me not typing hyphenated names in full) has a false “bump” so they retain the pregnant aspect. The notes say they had planned to replace Hedydd partly on the tour following Stratford, and clearly Toyin is ready right away to take over … I hope she keeps the lead role. She does the rage of the affronted wife so well. Again, within seconds of her appearance, it’s hard to imagine anyone else doing it.

Nicholas Prasad was always Solinus, the duke, but here he had to take over the guru role as Dr Pinch too. You would never know he hadn’t always done it, and as I know sitting in a lotus position is not easy.

They ran into one problem with so many understudies … four of them replacing eight roles. Dyfrig Morris’s original role was bodyguard to the Second Merchant (William Grint). Breen had got round an issue here. The RSC has an actor with a disability in every production. Sometimes, as with a missing limb, or an actor in a wheelchair it works easily. William Grint is a deaf actor, and at both The Globe and RSC this has been problematic for me. He is superb, and very funny with his mimes, but as I’ve said before. This is Shakespeare. Parts with lines are an issue for deaf actors with speech challenges. I am trying hard to find a way of saying it, but I used to be really good at football till I was twelve and started gaining weight rapidly. Being a fat early teen stopped me playing. I am a very poor singer. I won’t be able to join a choir. That’s a fact of life. So Breen got over this AND added humour by having Grint miming with Dyfrig Morris as a huge bodyguard towering over him and translating the lines for us. Morris has been replaced by Alfred Clay with an Arab accent. It works absolutely fine and is funny in all the Second Merchant scenes. Then they must have run into logistics in replacing Balthazar. Trouble is, he’s in a scene with Antipholus of Ephesus, which limits who could do it. So William Grint stepped up, but without a translator. Needs must … but it basically lost the point of Balthazar’s advice.

Lto R: Nicholas Prasad as Solinus, Zoe Lambert as the Abbess, Antony Bunsee as Egeon

The play ended with a kind of reverse curtain call. The back panel opens so we see the exterior of the actual Swan Theatre behind … it looks like an abbey. Everyone leaves the stage one by one and stands in that area. And yes, they did achieve the requisite pathos as the Dromios embrace and leave. The plot about families parted for years and being reunited rings so many bells this year.

The dance
Note: The “original” courtesan Toyin Ayedun-Alase is in red on the left

The encore in RSC / Globe tradition is a dance. Baker Musaka plays the African goldsmith, and I knew immediately from the positioning that he is also the dance master, along with Avita Jay.

FIVE STARS *****

Plus some special praise:

BEST EVER UNDERSTUDY (male): Dyfrig Morris as Antipholus of Ephesus
BEST BACKGROUND CAMEO: Dyfrig Morris as the waiter
BEST EVER UNDERSTUDY (female) – Toyin Ayedun-Alase as Adrianna

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS ON THIS BLOG:

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

It seems Press Night was wet:

QUENTIN LETTS: It was rainy on Tuesday and the action kept stopping to let backstage staff swab the slippery stage. This created an indomitable mood that added to the enjoyment as the cast skidded and occasionally ad-libbed. “Hope you’ve got enough money in the car parking,” said Jonathan Broadbent. (Sunday Times)

5 Star
Mark Lawson, The Guardian *****

After a period in which The Comedy of Errors has been busy as a headline on the government, the RSC gloriously reclaims it for theatre.

4 star

Domenic Cavendish, The Daily Telegraph ****

Clive Davis, The Times ****

Phillip Breen’s production of The Comedy of Errors may have more than a touch of madness, but its energy and inventiveness prove just about irresistible.

Luke Jones, Daily Mail ****

For a balmy, luscious Warwickshire evening it was all pitched just right. Classic RSC quality, welcoming us back to close quarters with fellow theatre-lovers again: a merry example of what we’ve all missed, why we love it and why it matters.

Quentin Letts, The Sunday Times ****

Michael Davies, What’s On Stage ****

Across the cast, there are touches of brilliance and moments of high comedy, with Breen’s directorial hand steering proceedings assuredly to their outrageous conclusion. But equal credit must go to the rest of the creative team: Max Jones’s modern design, set in the contemporary Middle East, conscripts elements such as refugeeism, ostentation and barbaric punishments with a delicate sensibility, never overloading the resonances but making them integral to the production.

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

PHILIP BREEN – Director

The Shoemaker’s Holiday, by Thomas Dekker, RSC 2012

The Merry Wives of Windsor, RSC 2012

The Hypocrite, by Richard Bean, Hull Truck / RSC 2017

Comedy of Errors – RSC Garden Theatre 2021

JONATHAN BROADBENT

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Filter, 2011

My Night With Reg by Kevin Elyot, Apollo, London 2015

Love for Love by Congreve, RSC 2015

Queen Anne by Helen Edmundson, RSC 2015

Living Together by Alan Ayckbourn, Chichester, 2017

Round and Round The Garden by Alan Ayckbourn, Chichester 2017

Table Manners by Alan Ayckbourn, Chichester 2017

GREG HAISTE