The Comedy of Errors
Festival of Classics
The National Post

The Gardiner Expressway was further than usual from living up to its name on Tuesday evening, and I arrived in Oakville to find Antipholus of Ephesus in full protest against being shut out of his own house. For those who don't know, the reason for his exclusion is that his wife, unaware of the difference, is entertaining his identical twin brother, Antipholus of Syracuse. The boys were separated at birth, and the Syracusan one has been roaming the world, in search of his long-lost sibling. He has come finally come to the right place; but for some reason that Shakespeare never got around to explaining, it never once occurs to him that this might be the reason that people he has never met keep behaving as if they have known him for years. He puts it down to black magic, and cannot wait to get away.

The Antipholi have twin servants, both named Dromio and similarly split. Masters and men are no better at telling one another apart than anyone else in town, and for an Antipholus to send a Dromio on an errand is a recipe for disaster; the messenger will invariably end up reporting back to the wrong headquarters. Though the text never explicitly mentions it, the farcical action depends on both sets of twins not only looking but dressing alike, something else for which the author never bothered to account. These conventions accepted, the piece runs like clockwork.

In view of my late arrival, I have to describe my reaction to Miles Potter's production as tentatively positive. I can confidently assert that it demonstrates its director's customary and praiseworthy determination to make every line work. This includes the punning comedy routines that make up most of the Dromios' roles; the actors, Cliff Saunders and Murray Furrow, cannot make all the jokes funny, but -- like Big Jule in Guys and Dolls, rolling his blank dice and trusting to his memory of where the spots formerly was -- they provide a very clear indication of where the laughs ought to come, and why. This, since they are both efficient and endearing performers, is remarkably satisfying.

They both wear funny fezzes, this being a modern dress production set in Turkey, in homage to where the city of Ephesus formerly was. Their bosses, meanwhile, wear matching white suits. Matthew MacFadzean is equable and agreeable as the visiting Antipholus and Patrick Garrow fiercely voluble as the resident one; if the former, suspecting witchcraft, goes through the play being very, very afraid, then the latter, who gnaws through his bonds after being imprisoned on a double charge of debt and insanity, goes through it being very, very angry. Mary Ellen Mahoney gives a commanding performance as the Ephesian brother's jealous wife, who is one of the things he's angriest about, and Severn Thompson a sweet one, sometimes too liltingly lyrical, as her more malleable sister. The boys' long-lost parents are touchingly played by Thomas Hauff and Terry Tweed. "Touching" is not the first quality normally attributed to The Comedy of Errors but it in this production it's a salient one. Potter apparently aims to do as right by the themes of loss and reconciliation as he, and most other directors, do by the slapstick. Neither quality is played here to the utmost. The comings and goings at the barricaded house are nicely handled, and there is some entertaining business with rope, but I have certainly seen productions that were more hilariously inventive. And I have heard of -- though not actually seen -- productions that were more moving and mysterious.

The climactic moment at which all four brothers set foot on stage together could raise both more laughs and more tears than it does. But there are nice subtleties as the show winds down. The Antipholus pair seem somewhat guarded about their own reunion, as if still perturbed by the likelihood that one has lain with the other's wife, though presumably pleased to have found their mum and dad.

As for the Dromios -- well, they're only servants, so nobody cares who their parents are. But they're left alone on stage to get acquainted and, after a few moments of shy caution, they arrive at the joyous conclusion that, having entered the world together, they will "go hand in hand."

Shakespeare himself was the father of twins, one of whom died young, which may explain why this play has more resonance than you might expect. In any event, in addition to its qualities as farce, it stands as the first of those comedies of reconciliation which, as I argued recently in reviewing Cymbeline, are powerful precisely because of their improbability.

The production, like the last few in Coronation Park, obscures the enchanting lakeside setting with its own built- up one. I appreciate that the play needs the suggestion of a house -- certainly for the scene where I came in -- but I want both.