After seeing the matinee performance of George Brown’s Third Year Theatre Arts Performance Program of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, it’s heartening to say:
“The Canadian theatre industry will remain in steady and solid hands.”
Directed with a comic flair for wordplay by Severn Thompson, the third-year performance program students capture the inherent, bold, and naughty sense of fun in Shakespeare’s comedy. It’s one that I haven’t seen performed in a long time, so I’m glad the performance class tackled it with determination and zeal.
Set in Ephesus in the 1960s, Egeon (Jonny Ingley) is arrested. Unable to pay the bounty, he is condemned to death. Egeon tells Duke Solinus (Dale Rideout) that years earlier, he and his wife had been shipwrecked with their identical twin sons and a pair of infant servants. The parents, each with a son and a servant, were rescued but then permanently separated.
Egeon raised Antipholus of Syracuse (Kaleb Piper). His servant is Dromio (Chrisevina Tsoura). Syracuse has, for five years, been seeking his mother and brother. Egeon has been seeking his missing son, Antipholus of Ephesus (Jack Emerson Mosney), whose servant is also named Dromio (Philip Diamond)
See the mistaken identities for which Shakespearean comedies are noted?
Egeon’s story touches Duke Solinus, who grants a day’s respite to raise the bounty.
Meanwhile, Syracuse arrives in Ephesus without knowing his brother is there. The comedy starts with a misidentification. Adriana (Kimia Kalantari), the wife of Ephesus, mistakes Syracuse for her husband and drags him home to dinner, leaving her real husband locked out. Syracuse falls in love with Luciana (Eval Soleil), his brother’s sister-in-law who believes he is her sister’s husband behaving strangely. Additionally, a gold chain also leads to the madcap zaniness.
Amanda Wong’s set design remains functional in the intimate Weyni Mengesha auditorium in the Young Centre for the Performing Arts. Logan Raju Cracknell’s lighting evokes bright sunlit warmth. Ina Kerklaan’s costumes are reminders of the 60s era of pastel colours and suspenders. I also liked the selection of opening songs Scott Banks selected for the pre-show music.
This third-year ensemble cast deserves strong praise for their concerted efforts to make audiences laugh without resorting to ‘sitcom’ styles. None of them ever upstages another actor. They maintain a quick pace for the most part without losing momentum. It’s always a challenge to place an intermission in a Shakespearean comedy because of the added issue of how to bring back the quickness. This cast did it at the top of Act 2. There’s a colourful dance-and-party scene that immediately brings the audience back into the story.
I look forward to seeing each of the members of this cast on stage in the very near future in Toronto, Stratford and Shaw (plus other regional companies)
Best to them for the remainder of the run.
Visit https://www.youngcentre.ca/ to purchase tickets for this week’s performances. The show runs to February 14 in the Weyni Mengesha Theatre in the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 50 Tank House Lane.
