Free The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare Page B

Emir Kusturica, and although we weren’t specifically trying to re-create his world, there was something about the energy of his films like
Black Cat White Cat
and
Underground
, which all take place in Yugoslavia from the Second World War through to the present day, which we wanted to use. It wasn’t a specific thing, it was more about the energy of those films, and also the fact a lot of his work is set by the sea, the water is very present, as are people arriving and traveling. So that was our influence.
    The Comedy of Errors is unusual among Shakespeare’s plays in obeying the classical unities of time and place (one day, one location):what sort of constraints and opportunities followed from this?
    TS: For me the most powerful clue offered by that fact is toward the realism at the heart of the play. Like all good farce it relies on a basis of ordinary truth as found in common experience: home, marriage, trade, family, servitude, etc. And like all good mystical work it is similarly grounded in life as lived by the people. Shakespeare’s mysticism had a long way to go, through the later comedies and the tragedies until it arrived at
The Tempest
. But he always balanced good, grounded plotting with playful, strange, and magical suggestion. In
The Comedy of Errors
both are there but the former far outweighs the latter.
    It had always struck me as strange that the contemporary tradition of producing this play has become a vivid abstraction—as if it has to be somehow unreal to make sense. I think that the unity of time and place is just one powerful suggestion amongst many that the intention of the play is rooted in a simple, truthful, and realistic portrayal of life, like a good Roman comedy or Italian farce. The content of the play—the thought, speech, and action—is another. It is rarely abstract, philosophical. Rather it is usually about the basic issues: food, money, sex, family. It’s the tragedy of loss experienced by Egeon and the search by Antipholus of Syracuse for his other half that shifts the play both into extreme farce and onto a spiritual plane. This happens gradually and sweeps all up into its wonder. But the starting point, and the frame throughout, is one day in one place amongst lives lived as most of us live. It is no coincidence that it is one of Shakespeare’s most bourgeois plays. As his work became more abstract, more radical, more poetic and mystical, he played with a greater variety of form and a wider canvas of characters.
    NM: A great deal of this play is set outdoors and our set felt very exterior. But then we created interiors with simple elements being wheeled on. Adriana’s house was shown by having the table and chairs and a waiting dinner. The courtroom scene at the beginning was performed as if it were an outdoor trial and the duke’s throne of office was in fact a barber’s chair. This had Mafia overtones and it also meant his henchmen started off as his barbers. In between each scene we had a street singer which helped denote passage of time while we changed the elements of set for the next scene. During these scene changes we also saw the street life of the town, which included old Egeon wandering with his jailer, making unsuccessful attempts to raise the ransom for his life before the sunset deadline. We also had street musicians onstage for the entire show as if they were in the town square.

    7. Nancy Meckler’s 2005 production in commedia dell’arte mode with a huge amount of slapstick: (left to right) Jonathan Slinger, Dromio of Syracuse; Bettrys Jones, Luce; Christopher Robert, First Merchant; Kevin Trainor, Messenger; Suzanne Burden, Adriana; and Forbes Masson, Dromio of Ephesus.
    PH: I found that idea very liberating. Because the play fundamentally works in the spirit of confusion and mistakes, that for me became enhanced and more interesting
because
of the fact that it was played out within one day and one place. What Shakespeare does brilliantly is intensify what