Illuminations 2014
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
illuminations A Guide to the 2014 Plays 3 The Comedy of Errors William Shakespeare Directed by Kent Gash Luciana Adriana’s sister. Has caught the eye of Antipholus of Syracuse. Luce Adriana’s servant. Nell Antipholus of Ephesus’ kitchen maid. rodney gardiner (dromio of syracuse and ephesus ) Courtesan Notes by Otis Ramsey-Zöe Mistress of Antipholus of Ephesus. and Rob Weinert-Kendt Emilia Who’s Who The Abbess of a priory. Syracusans Balthazar A merchant. Egeon A merchant who arrived in Ephesus after Angelo searching for his twin sons. A goldsmith and a friend of Antipholus of Ephesus. Antipholus of Syracuse Twin brother of Antipholus of Ephesus and First Merchant son of Egeon. He has been traveling the world A friend of Antipholus of Ephesus. in search of his long-lost brother and mother. Second Merchant Dromio of Syracuse Must get money Angelo owes him. Twin brother of Dromio of Ephesus and servant of Antipholus of Syracuse. Doctor Pinch A schoolmaster, doctor and aspiring exorcist. Ephesians Duke Solinus The Story Ruler of Ephesus. He upholds the rule of law while employing compassion in its application. Years ago, the merchant Egeon was sailing with his wife, twin sons and twin servants when a ship- Antipholus of Ephesus wreck divided his family. He, along with one twin Twin brother of Antipholus of Syracuse. A well- son and one servant, was rescued by a passing respected member of the community. ship; a separate ship saved his wife and the other twin son and servant. Egeon and his one son and Dromio of Ephesus servant settled in Syracuse. Twin brother of Dromio of Syracuse and servant Now an adult, Egeon’s son Antipholus of of Antipholus of Ephesus. Syracuse (hereafter Antipholus S.) sets out with his servant Dromio of Syracuse (hereafter Dromio S.) In this production, which is set Adriana to find their lost brothers. When they fail to return, during the Harlem Renaissance, Wife of Antipholus of Ephesus. Craves equality in Egeon begins to search for them, his other son Ephesus is Harlem and Syracuse her marriage. and servant and his wife. His search brings him to is Louisiana. Ephesus, a town traditionally hostile to Syracuse. Each town has decreed death to any citizen from 6 All That Comedy Can Bear arguing marriage the rival precinct. Egeon is discovered, and Duke Some pedants insist that The Comedy of Errors, Elizabethans generally adhered Solinus sentences him to death. Egeon accepts one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays and by line to views of Christian marriage his impending death as a means to end his grief count his shortest, is more accurately titled The and misery. Hearing this, Solinus extends a one- Errors, after the tradition of dropping the rubric as dictated by faith and articu- day stay of execution to allow Egeon to raise bail “tragedy” or “comedy” as we do from, say, The lated in St. Paul’s letter to the money to save himself. Tragedy of King Lear. But while no one needs Ephesians, which states that Antipholus S. and Dromio S. arrive in Ephesus such a category reminder for the tales of Hamlet, on the same day as Egeon, and the master sends Macbeth, Coriolanus or those doomed teens wives must be subject to his servant to put away some money for safe- from Verona, to sever “comedy” from “errors” is their husbands, who in turn keeping at their inn. Shortly, Dromio of Ephesus to separate text from context, sequences from shall be “head of the wife.” As (hereafter Dromio E.) runs into the visiting consequences, the punch line from the joke. Antipholus. Thinking him his master, he urges Such a separation does violence, in fact, to the such, in Renaissance England, him to return home posthaste for dinner. play’s essence. For while it is the sheer volume a woman’s body and posses- Antipholus S. asks Dromio E. if the money is safe. of scarcely believable mistakes and coincidences sions became her husband’s Confused, he denies knowledge of any money, that tips it into the comedy column, the play’s and gets beaten for his pains. forward bounce is what keeps these mishaps property, which allowed him Waiting, as always, for her husband, from inflicting lasting harm and keeps the to beat her for disobedience. Antipholus of Ephesus (hereafter Antipholus E.), characters’ sins from becoming mortal. Accordingly, Antipholus E. sends Adriana and her sister Luciana discuss the plight of married women. Adriana’s servant, Dromio E., Threat of death his Dromio to buy a rope for interrupts and recounts his strange encounter Still, the first thing one notices about the play such purpose. with the man he thinks is his master. Adriana is that it begins and ends on the very brink of Adriana and Luciana dispute sets out to fetch her husband and encounters the mortality. The Syracusan Egeon will die unless visiting Antipholus and Dromio and brings them he can raise a ransom by sundown, and the the nature of marriage and home. When the local Antipholus and Dromio action climaxes with his dramatic, last-minute role of wives. Their dialogue arrive home, they find themselves locked out. rescue from execution. While it’s easy to trace reflects tension between Enraged, Antipholus E. goes to a Courtesan and Shakespeare’s sources for the play—a pair of promises her the gold chain he’d intended for mistaken-identity comedies by Roman playwright romantic love, social obligation his wife. Plautus—the addition of a literal “deadline” is and expectations of married Antipholus S. courts Luciana, who rejects his an invention typical of the young playwright’s women. Luciana represents the advances because she believes he is her sister’s dramatic sense. From the outset, Shakespeare husband. Antipholus E. is arrested for refusing guessed that even the frothiest farce purrs along status quo, urging her sister to to pay for the gold chain that was mistakenly better with a frosty nip at its heels. observe patience and accede to delivered to his twin brother earlier that day. The Shakespeare’s other innovation is also the dominance. Adriana argues that Courtesan demands Antipholus S. give her the play’s boldest gambit: doubling the number of promised chain. Convinced the town is filled with separated twins for maximum comic confu- Luciana’s position stems from witchcraft (as is Ephesus’ reputation), he and sion, so that waiting on two estranged young naïveté and says experience will Dromio S. try to escape. They find sanctuary in a masters named Antipholus are two oblivious alter her thinking. nearby priory with the Abbess. servants named Dromio. Not only had none of Meanwhile, Adriana, Luciana and the Shakespeare’s antecedents tried this, it is hard In contrast, Adriana ques- Courtesan hire Dr. Pinch to cure Antipholus and to find a twin-based mistaken-identity tale since, tions why men should have Dromio E. of what they perceive as madness, from Dumas’ The Man in the Iron Mask to David greater freedom than women. and the doctor takes the pair away. But they Cronenberg’s film Dead Ringers, that has dared to escape and meet their household outside the “supersize” its fantastical premise in this way. Her revolutionary stance priory. Duke Solinus enters with Egeon on his This ambitious mistaken-identity pile-up against social, political and eco- way to be executed, and the Abbess appears with functions as the sort of all-or-nothing gamble nomic orders seem rooted in a Antipholus and Dromio S. The family reunion is that both raises the comic stakes and piques completed, which includes a revelation that our curiosity as to how it can possibly be pulled rejection of the powerlessness Egeon’s wife is the Abbess. Solinus pardons off, like an ice skater adding another triple axel created by those very systems. Egeon.—Otis Ramsey-Zöe in midair. And it constitutes the playwright’s —ORZ 7 The Comedy of Errors stock characters The figures in The Comedy of winking bargain with the audience: Suspend your of Adriana and her servants to look outside at the disbelief, and I’ll keep all the plates spinning. As men claiming to belong there. Errors derive from stock charac- Samuel Taylor Coleridge put it in Literary Remains: How exactly does Shakespeare get away with ters that originated in Roman “A comedy would scarcely allow even the two all these feints, suspensions and reversals of plain comedies and found their Antipholuses . but farce dares add the two common sense? By turning the very quadrupling Dromios. In a word, farces commence in a of mistaken identities, which generates the play’s greatest expression in Italian postulate, which must be granted.” most glaring challenges, to his advantage. In commedia dell’arte. Based on Even so, The Comedy of Errors’ “postulate” is by giving each Antipholus his own clever, garrulous fixed social types, many evolved design not an easy one to swallow, and our indul- servant Dromio, Shakespeare is not only able to gence is required not only when the farce com- multiply the plot’s misunderstandings but to milk into the favorite characters of mences but throughout. For starters: Even allow- every drop of humorous commentary from them. European drama in the 17th and ing for the twins’ physical resemblance, what The presence of a comic foil, in turn, lends the 18th centuries. Here are some of exactly are the odds that they would be wearing cock-ups and confusions another explanation, the same clothes? Productions of The Comedy of apart from the suspicion of sorcery: the notion the most popular: Errors most often surmount this obstacle with that they’re a put-on or a practical joke.