Comedy of Errors

I went to the Georgia Shakespeare production of Comedy of Errors tonight with my brother and sister-in-law. Very good production, done to take advantage of what the director called the Shakespearean comedy that is most amenable to physical comedy and slapstick. So there were Marx brothers and Three Stooges riffs, along with the odd costuming (usual for Georgia Shakespeare) like Dr. Pinch and his assistants--the doctor dressed in black with a hairstyle that "pinched" up what looked like a foot above his head, and the (female) assistants in white skin-tight leather shorts/bodysuits with "hypnodisks" on their breasts. Said hypnodisks would be set spinning at various moments when another actor needed to be subdued. Perhaps that gives a little of the flavor of the production...

As it was the opening weekend, the director and much of the rest of the crew and the cast held a "Talk Back" session after the show. A couple of quotes from the director: "I had a vision of a 3 foot tall nun and a 10 foot tall nun" (and indeed he got them) and "Park asked 'can I have a whip and a hula hoop?': my first reaction was no, but told her to let me sleep on it" (Park played the courtesan, and the whip and hula hoop did show up).

Thye used of one pair of actors for Antipholus and Dromio, with only subtle clues on clothing and props as to which role they were playing at the moment. It took me a surprising long time to decide it really was the same set of actors, but less time, once that was out of the way, to spot the clothing clues. I also missed the fake bios that were inserted in the program for the credited actors ("Taylor Kohler" and "Armitage Shanks", in a little trans-Atlantic plumbing humor)...must learn to read the program more carefully...