Drama Beat
Shakespeare in the Park are having fun playing with the comedy “A Comedy of Errors,” which opens at Galt Gardens, at 7 p.m., June 29 and runs most Thursdays and Friday nights until Aug. 11.
Director Ron Chambers is excited to trot on stage a western version of Shakespeare’s comedy, with plenty of slapstick comedy, misunderstandings and hopefully few errors.
“ I think it‘s going pretty well. It’s two weeks before we open. It looks pretty solid. We‘re ironing out some details and the guys are busy youtubing Abbott and Costello and the Three Stooges,” said Chambers, who is excited to not only work with a diverse cast including university students, recent graduates, community members and a handful of high school students, but is excited to work outside in Galt Gardens.
“I did a play outside several years ago, so getting to work outside again was one of the reasons I wanted to do this play,” he said.
Chambers and Shakespeare in the Park producer Kate Connolly not only shortened to play to a tight production just over an hour long, but turned it into a western and tweaked some of the characters turning the Abbess into “Crazy Kate,”the Courtesan into Miss Kitty, the Duke into the Sheriff and Dr. Pinch, the doctor, into a firebrand preacher. They also turned Ephesus into Heifersus— a rural river cowboy town.
“I did a lot of research into the nineteenth century and incorporated a few phrases. Kate shortened the play and took out a lot of the thees and thous to make it more accessible. It‘s a lot of fun,” Chambers said.
“If you are a Shakespeare scholar or researcher you will probably come away from it disappointed. But if you come to it wanting to have fun, you will have a blast,” he said.
“ I always feel a little guilty about changing Shakespeare, but I don’t think he would have minded. He loved language. he wrote plays to please audiences and to make money, which is what we’re trying to do,” he said, noting Shakespeare was inspired to write A Comedy of Errors by The Menaechmi written by ancient Roman dramatist Plautus.
“He (Shakespeare) added an extra pair of twins,” he continued.
“ The play is about two sets of twins who get separated at birth in a shipwreck. (Each twin has a servant twin). One set of twins come to a strange town and nobody knows who they are so they are mistaken for each other, which creates a lot of comedy and a lot of errors,” Chambers said.
“It is an hour and 10 minutes. So it is short and sweet and funny. You’ll even have time to go shopping afterwards,” Chambers chuckled.
