The Comedy of Errors

Gold Company – Cast Errors

This classic Shakespeare comedy tells the story of Egeon, a merchant of Syracuse, who was travelling home on a boat with his wife and their twin sons, along with the twin boys that Egeon had purchased to be servants for his sons as they grow.  A suspected storm results in the family being separated in two halves and tied to the masts of the ship while the crew panic and abandon the ship.  Without a crew the ship drifts into a rock and is split in two causing the family to be castaway half in Syracuse and the other half washed ashore in Ephesus. 

What follows is an hilarious tale of mistakes and misadventure when thirty-three years later the son in Syracuse and his servant try to find their brothers. Then Egeon (Matthew Tordoff) embarks on a journey to find his son and is arrested in Ephesus as an illegal alien and sentenced to beheading.  Tordoff is commanding in his story telling whilst the whole company, in simple black costumes and white face masks, act out the tale with engaging movement to appropriate music.  The company created the masts of the ship and portrayed with confident stature the opening of the story which was enhanced by the lighting. 

When both sets of twins end up in the same town a series of events cause their paths to almost cross and a range of errors result in Antipholus of Syracuse (Jack McAvoy) and Dromio of Syracuse (Ben Brown) being mistaken for Antipholus of Ephesus (Amelia Lee) and Dromio of Ephesus (Ianthe Rosenburg) by Adriana his wife (Lottie Ryhill) and her sister Luciana (Niamh Naughton)  along with other residents of Ephesus.  McAvoy was wonderfully bemused by the many misunderstandings and Brown showed intense bewilderment throughout and gave a great Fairy Land speech.  Lee portrayed a persistent state of annoyance and Rosenburg demonstrated great comedic frustration and some strong movement, especially the roll away.  Ryhill as Adriana gave a very commanding performance especially when she directed her vexation at Antipholus. Naughton was clearly perplexed by all that was going on and provided a great contrast to the demonstrating Adriana.

Other roles were taken by Ruby Lodge as Duke Solinus, Fraser Carr as Angelo, Ebonnie Mills as the Merchant, Hannah Sharkey as Emilia, Dylan Swift as Officer and Sammie Wilkins as Luce all of whom gave strong performances and demonstrated a real grasp of the challenging speeches.   As with all YTYT performances the projection was excellent and the players delivery both engaging and entertaining.   These young performers were all confident giving great performances.

Simple costume pieces were added to the black base wear which allowed the characters to be defined, but without distracting from the acting.  The black box stage was well used and the very minimal props handled appropriately.

As the plot relies so heavily on rapid-fire mistaken identities, this production found the energy and comedic timing especially in the performances of the twins and servants with the overall pace of the performance being excellent.  The impact was one of glorious fun whilst the comedy was not overdone to take away from the performances of these talented young people.

Congratulations to Director, Sarah Osborne and the Technical Team of Ash Howick and Ashe Lloyd, along with the young people who were thoroughly entertaining.  Whilst this report focusses on Cast Errors I am confident that Cast Comedy will have been equally as good.

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