The Midnight Train Crossing

On 6 November 2004 I saw a production of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors by the Milwaukee Shakespeare Company. (This production company has a partnership with my school, so they performed on campus).

Comedy of Errors is a comedy based on one of Shakespeare’s common themes - mistaken identity. For in this play there is not one, but two sets of identical twins - and to make things even more fun, the first set of twins is named Antipholus (they both are) and the second set is named Dromino (Again, they both are).

Basically, the story opens with a merchant from the fictional land of Syracuse traveling through the land of Ephesus. Apparently there is a bummer of a law in Ephesus that anybody from Syracuse traveling through Ephesus must either play 1000 marks or die. (That’s a pretty harsh law if you ask me). The merchant - Egeon explains to the Duke of Ephesus why he has come to Ephesus in the beginning. He says that he and his wife had two twin babies (The Antipholus) and two twin servants (The Drominos). But because of a shipwreck (Another common Shakespeare thing) Egeon and one of the Antipholus’s and one of the Dromino’s were sent off in one direction, and the other three in another direction.
Since then he hasn’t seen half his family.

Meanwhile, Antipholus of Ephesus is a successful merchant. He’s married and lives with his wife Adriana and her sister Luciana. His servant Dromino of Ephesus also lives there.

Antipholus of Syracuse and HIS servant, Dromino of Syracuse, meanwhile, have been traveling the world, looking for the other half of their family.

Antipholus S. and Dromino S. arrive in Ephesus. Many wacky hijinks follow as Antipholus of S. repeatedly gets mistaken for Antipholus of E and vice versa. The Drominos, also being identical, get mixed up as well.
Things continue on this way until the Abbess comes in and sorts everything out. It turns out that she was the mother of the twins. The two twins are seen on stage together, and finally everybody understands and they live happily ever after.

In the production I saw, Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromino of Syracuse were my favorite characters. I also liked the Courtesan - a prostitute who Antipholus of Ephesus goes to see.
Antipholus of S. wore blue clothes (and he had a hat with a blue feather). Antipholus of E. wore purple.
As for the Drominos, Dromino of S. wore a larger hat then Dromino of E. (for reasons that shall be explained later).

Antipholus of S. was played by Matt Daniels, Dromino of S. by Kevin Rich and the Courtesan by Marcy Kearns.
I mostly liked Antipholus of S. because of the fabulous facial expressions he had. Particularly when Dromino of E. Came out and informed him that his wife wanted him home for dinner. Antipholus of S. was just like “Huh??”
Dromino of S. was just funny... I think he had most of the best lines in the play. Dromino of E. Is married to one of the kitchen maids named Luce (played by Jonathan West). Since she thought that Dromino of S. was her husband, this also led to confusion.
There were at least two scenes in which Dromino of S. complained to Antipholus of S. about this frightful woman that is insisting that she’s married to him. One of my favorite lines of Dromino of S was “She is spherical!” He just had a brilliant delivery.

Dr. Pinch (Jonathan Gillard Daly) is a “doctor” that Adriana (Antipholus of E’s wife) calls in because she fears her “husband” is mad. (At this point, she thinks that Antipholus of S is her husband). He had very few lines, but was so very funny. Dr. Pinch, Adriana (played by Abbey Siegworth) and his assistants come upon Antipholus of E and Dromino of E and Dr. Pinch attempts to perform an ‘exorcism’ with the aid of two longs sticks.
Meanwhile, Antipholus of E continued to insist that he was not mad, and indeed, perhaps Adriana was the one that was mad.
In the course of the dialogue, Dromino of E. stole the sticks away from Dr. Pinch and was chasing him around for awhile.

Another thing that was very entertaining was that the director of the play, Susan Finque, had decided to try and incorporate some songs into the play. So periodically one or more of the cast would break into song. Near the beginning Antipholus of E and the merchants of Ephesus sing a song about money. I don’t know what it’s called, but it was pretty funny.

Another one I remember was the Courtesan. She has Antipholus of E over to her house for dinner and he owes her either a ring or a gold chain. The next day, she sees Antipholus of S and demands her payment.
Antipholus (and Dromino) of S become rather freaked out by her and try warding her off as though she were a witch. (Which was funny). She watches them leave, throughly convinced that they are mad and then all of a sudden she stomps down hard on the stage and sings “The minute he walked in the joint, I could tell he was a man of distinction... a real big spender.” Then a few more lines in which she plots how to get even with him (or get paid) and then “wouldn’t you like to know what’s going on in my mind?” Then back to Shakespearean English again.

At the end of the play, once everybody is happily reunited and all problems are sorted out, Dromino comes out with a cart of umbrellas and as round gold foil pieces flutter from the sky, (courtesy of the stage hands) the entire cast sang Pennies from Heaven.

The Abbess (Kate Young) was also very funny. She came out in impressive black robes and a very high, very silly headdress that looked like a heart. Antipholus of S and Dromino of S are fleeing from an angry mob who insist that he owes them money and they take refuge in the abbey, which is how the Abbess comes into the story.
She came out and ran around the stage, blowing a whistle and generally striking fear into the hearts of everyone on stage.

But my favorite scene of the play is the scene with the door.
Antipholus and Dromino of S decide to obey Adriana’s summons to dinner, despite the fact that neither of the two know who she is.
Adriana directs Dromino of S to guard the door and not let anyone in while she and her “husband” are having dinner.
Dromino of S obeys.
Several minutes later, Antipholus of E and Dromino of E arrive home, and much to Antipholus of E’s surprise, he cannot get into his house.
An argument between both Drominos follows, but Antipholus of E cannot get in.

Now for the reason this was my favorite scene:
The door was normally located on the back of the stage, but for this scene they took it off and held it up so that the audience could see either side of the door.
As I said, Dromino of S wore a large bowler hat and Dromino of E wore a smaller hat, sort of like a beanie (I guess)

Also like I said before, Dromino of S was played by Kevin Rich. Dromino of E was played by... Kevin Rich. What better way to have identical twins in the same play then to have the same actor play them?
When he had the large hat on, he was Dromino of S. when he took it off, he was Dromino of E.
So, Kevin Rich darted back and forth around the door, basically arguing with himself, and taking the hat on or off depending on which side of the door he was on. He had also given the two Dromino’s different expressions. Dromino of S was considerably more cheerful then Dromino of E.

And then, to make it funnier, the other actors on stage, like Antipholus of E and Luce started helping take the hat on or off.
It worked beautifully. They all had perfect timing so that it didn’t look terribly corney.

Up until this scene, which was a good way through the first act, I had no idea that the two Drominos were played by the same actor. But when both characters are on stage at the same time and there’s only one actor, that’s a pretty good hint.
In the program it is listed that Dromino of E is played by somebody named “Richard Kens”who is an invented person.

After the play, they had a talk-back with the audience. The cast went off stage to change out of their costumes and then came back on and talked about Shakespeare, and performing Shakespeare, and performing comedies in general.
It was pretty interesting.

Now for more about Kevin Rich. When he came out and sat down with the other actors during the talk-back I did a double take. (For real!) He had dark red-ish brown hair, but it was rather short and spikey. Listening to him talk only confirmed my thought. He looked and sounded almost exactly like Jeremy Kocal (of Red Caboose fame). It was almost scary.
And my mother agreed with me. So it wasn’t just me going through Starlight withdrawal. Tis rather amusing to me that I spotted Jeremy’s “twin” in a play about twins.

So all together, I enjoyed the play a lot. I think it was the best performance I’d ever seen by Milwaukee Shakes. (Not saying that all of the other ones I’ve seen weren’t good). But I know that I’ve never laughed so hard at a Shakespeare play before.