More than 400 years after it was first published, William Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors” continues to entertain and confound audiences. Marin Shakespeare Company’s audacious all-female production runs outdoors at Dominican University of California’s Forest Meadows Amphitheatre through Sept. 15.
Why “audacious?” In Shakespeare’s time, women were forbidden to appear on the English stage. It was considered unseemly and immoral, although they performed in other countries in Europe. Marin Shakespeare Company turns this injustice upside down by presenting the Bard’s comedy by an all-female cast, who offer an informative introduction by reciting some decrees and moral pronouncements by a 17th-century English monarch.
This explanatory preamble was preceded by an all-acoustic, almost Renaissance-style cover of Metallica’s “The Unforgiven” as showgoers found their seats — a brilliant bit of music programming by sound designer Ben Euphrat.
Shakespeare’s comedies typically benefit from reading a synopsis of the plot. They often involve shipwrecks, twins separated at birth, mistaken identities, money owed and various sorts of arbitrary and impractical deadlines. “The Comedy of Errors” is rife with such tropes, including two shipwrecks, two sets of twins and characters with the same names — Dromio of Ephesus and Dromio of Syracuse, for example.
It’s not clear if repeated readings of the plot would help an audience with this production. The story is murky and incomprehensible, but the performances are dynamic and delightful even if it’s not clear who is who or who owes what or why — there’s a running thread throughout the show about 40 ducats owed for a gold chain, then 400, then 500. The characters seem to have a grasp on this even if the audience doesn’t.
Directed by Michael Gene Sullivan, currently starring in his own production of “American Dreams” with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the madcap action includes plenty of forced wordplay while running up and down stairs, lots of quick costume changes — sometimes only a change of hat —and some cutaway bits that are truthfully funnier than anything the Bard built into his script.
The second act opens with a two-performer song-and-dance sketch about the story of the Three Little Pigs, and later, an extended piece where each of the eight performers does a death scene from one of Shakespeare’s tragedies — “Et tu, Brute?” “Goodnight, sweet prince,” and so on. That and an exuberant swordfight in swirling skirts involving most of the cast are high points in the show.
Nina Ball’s imposing, almost monochromatic set is a barrel maker’s two-level workshop, nicely realized with an array of old tools — and Tammy Berlin’s gorgeous costumes stand out brilliantly against it. Same-named characters wear almost identical costumes, especially toward the show’s end, adding to the confusion of who they are or what is their purpose.
Every compelling story has a dramatic arc — a clear sense of purpose that drives it from here to there — and arcs for primary characters that show us how they change by interacting with each other. There’s very little of that in this “Comedy of Errors.” Some folks in the audience were overheard grumbling, “Does this show have a plot?”
Answer: sort of. It’s basically a door-slamming farce, an expert exercise in high-energy silliness with no sense of resolution. It begins at a high level and continues at that altitude and pace throughout its entire two-plus hours. Imagine if Marin Shakespeare Company’s cast were female versions of the Three Stooges, and you have some idea what you’re in for at Forest Meadows. Their onstage antics overwhelm whatever subtlety exists in the script, but the performers have a tremendous time with it and so will many showgoers.
Euphrat’s opening with an all-acoustic treatment of “The Unforgiven” is mirrored by a similar closing — Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” There couldn’t be better exit music for a show like this.
Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact him at barry.m.willis@gmail.com
What: “The Comedy of Errors”
Where: Forest Meadows Amphitheatre, Dominican University of California, 890 Belle Ave., San Rafael
When: Through Sept. 15; 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays
Admission: $15 to $40
Information: 415-499-4485; marinshakespeare.org/tickets
Rating (out of five stars): ★★★
