The Comedy of Errors Review: Shakespeare at His Silliest
Antipholus has clearly gone mad! He steals, lies, and pretends not to recognise his own wife. His servant Dromio is no better: straying from his quests, making insubordinate jokes, and even locking Antipholus out of his own house. Surely some kind of demonic possession is to blame!
But here’s the thing: there’re actually two Antipholuses, and two Dromios to go along with them – two sets of identical twins, torn apart by fate and reunited without their knowledge in a spiralling journey of mistaken identity. Thus unfolds The Comedy of Errors; one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays – and perhaps his most ridiculous – now presented in a new ‘Theatre Under the Stars’ format by Sport For Jove in collaboration with Merrigong Theatre Company and UOW. Bring a picnic rug, your favourite foods, and all your besties, and get nice and close to the action – but beware, your ticket might come with an impromptu workout class, or even put you in the splash zone!
Theatre Under the Stars is set to be a mainstay in future Merrigong seasons, following the success of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Wollongong Botanic Gardens in 2023. I found it slightly unfortunate that the Gardens weren’t chosen as the venue for this new series, with Kooloobong Oval feeling like an inferior substitute in terms of the surrounding terrain and scenery. Similarly, with the expansiveness of Midsummer in mind I thought that the outdoor setting wasn’t being used to its full potential, with most of the action remaining firmly on the stage. With that aside, though, open-air theatre is always a joy, especially when it involves such side-splitting antics as The Comedy of Errors’. Local residents – lorikeets, cockatoos, flying foxes, and a highly opinionated kookaburra – chimed in as they saw fit, and Mt Keira got a shoutout from the tourist Antipholus of Syracuse. We were lucky enough to have pleasant weather, and the audience was well looked after by the lovely Merrigong team, including a pop-up bar selling food and drinks to complete our picnic dinner.
To turn our attention to the production itself, I fell in love with the set instantly. It’s cobbled together from mismatched furniture, cluttered and piled high with suitcases, and coated in multiple fading layers of paint, all coming together to evoke the busyness of the port city Ephesus and the journey that has brought our main characters here. The staging is low-tech, with simple practical effects giving it a truly Shakespearean energy and feeling right at home in the outdoor setting. Similarly stunning are the costumes, designed by Bernadette Ryan, blending historical with hyper-modern to add an extra layer of confusion and mystery. In costume, the visual similarities between the two Antipholuses and the two Dromios went from striking to uncanny, making for an ultra-immersive experience where even the audience was never quite able to tell who was who.
However, the mood was soured by the inclusion of graphic elements that appeared to be AI generated. Although it was a minimal part of the overall staging (which gives all the more reason to simply leave it out), the use of AI cheapened the artistic integrity of the production and felt like it contributed to a dangerous precedent for future productions. The arts sector, along with many other industries, has overwhelmingly sounded the alarm about AI, for ethical, environmental, and job security reasons. I worry that the normalisation of its use by professional theatre companies like Sport For Jove will lead to further exacerbation of these issues within the already fragile Australian theatre industry.
On a lighter note, the play’s directors Damien Ryan and George Banders weren’t afraid to take the silliest, most lowbrow approach to The Comedy of Errors: toilet humour, slapstick comedy, and an occasional modern reference had the audience in stitches. It felt gloriously faithful to how Shakespeare’s original audiences would have connected with the show. The choice to transpose some characters into the modern era – like a tradwife gymfluencer and a spiritual healer utilising a cultural mishmash of practices – was particularly funny. Bringing it all to life, the cast felt like some kind of synergetic hive mind, working together as a well-oiled machine to create maximum chaos. The physical comedy was given plenty of room to breathe, with characters pausing to react in silence, which was hilarious at first; but it began after some time – along with some of the other recurring jokes – to feel overdone or unnecessarily drawn out. Despite being one of Shakespeare’s shortest works, and even with the explosive energy of this cast, The Comedy of Errors’ 2.5 hour runtime still requires stamina of a viewer, and some of these moments served to exacerbate that.
The added musical numbers, composed and performed by Naomi Belet, brought a haunting quality to many of the more tense plot points and served to remind us of the stakes, keeping the audience grounded and smoothing out what would otherwise have been some very abrupt tonal shifts.
On the whole, despite a few flaws, The Comedy of Errors is certainly worth the watch, especially when it means you get to enjoy the Theatre Under the Stars experience. It’s immersive, larger than life, and filled with twists and turns, which are tied off into a miraculous happy ending – something I think we could all do with at the moment. You can grab your tickets here until the 22nd of February, best paired with a summer salad and enjoyed with the whole family.
