Although it had to be rebuilt
extensively after World War Two, the Hall in the central London legal
enclave of Gray’s Inn is to all intents and purposes the same space in
which
The Comedy Of Errors
received its première recorded performance around Christmas 1594.
There, for instance, is the minstrels’ gallery where one of the twin
Dromio manservants would have popped up to bar the entrance to dinner
of the other one and his master Antipholus (likewise a twin). Ah, and
down there at floor level is the wheeled door flat that the Antic
Disposition company use for the same routine.
Directors Ben Horslen and John Risebero set the action in 1929 in “the
glamorous Bay of Ephesus Hotel”. The authorities of Ephesus are here
pinstripe-suited mobsters, and a jazz band punctuates the proceedings.
Basically, it’s
Some Like It Hot
with twins instead of drag.
A number of sharp ideas are apparent, but they hardly ever come off.
The company’s physicality is for the most part sheepish, with two or
three honourable exceptions. William de Coverly as Antipholus of
Syracuse devotes immense energy but ends up cartooning his character.
Keith Higinbotham as Dromio of Ephesus, in contrast, knows both when to
turn it up and when to leave it at 10 instead of trying to push it to
11. Paul Sloss plays the minor character of Angelo not as a 1920s
homosexual, but as a stereotyped 1920s idea of one, all hooting and
mincing. Almost the same noises and gestures are put to better use by
Philip Mansfield as the mountebank Doctor Pinch, whose shrieks and
’fluencing as he attempts to exorcise... er, I’ve forgotten which
Antipholus it is... make it seem as if he’s playing a large human
theremin.
There’s nothing wrong with staging the play like this, but when you’re
doing so in this particular venue it seems a bit pointless to ignore
the strong historical link. Of course, they only ignore it
artistically, not commercially. The ticket prices charged by this
largely post-student company for barely two hours, including interval,
jazz numbers and a magic routine, are comparable to those at
Shakespeare’s Globe and the RSC. It just ain’t worth it.
Written for the Financial
Times.