court theatre’s romp through the comedy of errors.
Alex Goodrich as Dromio of Syracuse
Fie, now you run this humour out of breadth,
where’s the chain?
—Antipholus of Ehphesus
As Chris Jones points out well in his review of the Court Theatre’s new production of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, director Sean Graney has created a production that is all comedy, and no errors. Which is to say it focuses entirely on the funny and farcical qualities of the play without probing any of its deeper themes about doubleness.
Which on one level is fitting, since Comedy is considered one of Shakespeare’s lighter and less masterful plays. Nonetheless Graney missed many opportunities, especially at the end of the play, to dig deeper into the implications of this seemingly silly story of mistaken identities, social differences, and other quintessentially-Shakespearean concerns.
That said, the acting, particularly Alex Goodrich’s droll approach to the dual roles of servant-twins-separated-at-birth Dromio of Ephesus and Dromio of Syracuse, is fascinating to witness. Goodrich is so casual in his portrayal that informality becomes a path to characterization.
What first seems like lazy acting becomes a kind of subtle, provocative commentary on the ephemeral, fragile, and even random nature of identity. Playing his role with a seeming lack of investment, Goodrich succeeds at raising the stakes of power relations between the Dromios and their twin masters Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse. This laconic, ironic depiction, somehow, in its very shallowness, deepens the roles of Dromio, and serves the servants well.
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