Today’s Wall Street Journal drama column contains the latest of my reports from Chicago, this time on Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s production of The Comedy of Errors. In addition, I review the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park production of Hamlet. Here’s an excerpt.
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I didn’t know that Chicago Shakespeare would be receiving a regional-theater Tony when I made plans to see Barbara Gaines’ production of “The Comedy of Errors.” It’s pure dumb luck that this review is running less than a week after the company was honored for the unfailing excellence of its work–and that the show I came to town to see is a model of its intelligent yet accessible style. “I don’t think Shakespeare set out to teach us anything,” Ms. Gaines, the company’s founder and artistic director, has said. “He just wanted to tell a great story.” If so, then this “Comedy of Errors” must be what the Bard had in mind, for the only “lesson” it teaches is that loud laughter in large quantities is good for the soul….
Not only is “The Comedy of Errors” complicated to the max, but it also happens to be Shakespeare’s shortest play, thus giving smart directors plenty of room to make still more mischief. Ms. Gaines, for instance, has turned it into a play within a play: In her version, “The Comedy of Errors” is being filmed on an English soundstage during the Battle of Britain. The characters become caricatures of recognizable theatrical types–the pompous actor-peer, the promiscuous movie star, the American crooner turned Hollywood heart-throb–and the comic ante is upped when the War Ministry orders Shepperton Studios to wrap up the shoot in 48 hours.
Ron West, a veteran of Chicago’s Second City comedy troupe, was assigned the daunting task of writing the studio sequences, and brings it off without a hitch. Needless to say, he’s no Shakespeare, but his scenes are full of witty dialogue and neat inside jokes: “I’m just a bit player. I usually play someone whose first name is ‘First.'” His contribution to the production is closely comparable in quality to the ingenious book that Sam and Bella Spewack wrote for “Kiss Me, Kate,” Cole Porter’s musical version of “The Taming of the Shrew,” which doubtless inspired Ms. Gaines’s no less ingenious take on “The Comedy of Errors.”
For all the cleverness of Mr. West’s scenes, what makes this production work is the electric verve with which Ms. Gaines has staged Shakespeare’s play. The slapstick alone is worth the price of the ticket…
Back in the Big Apple, the Public Theater is putting on “Hamlet” in Central Park. I wish I could say that it’s half as good as “The Comedy of Errors,” but this “Hamlet” (which runs for just short of three-and-a-half hours) is, like most Shakespeare in the Park productions, an exceedingly mixed bag. Oskar Eustis’ staging is an off-the-rack modern-dress update played in front of a stark white wall augmented by the same old black scaffolding and fluorescent lights. A few unexpected things happen along the way–the play within the play, for instance, is a puppet show designed by Basil Twist, the best of all possible puppeteers–but the rest of Mr. Eustis’ “surprises” amount to little more than generic postmodernism…..
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Read the whole thing here.
Archives for June 20, 2008
TT: Bob Dylan’s day job
Now that the pending merger of XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio is in the news, it struck me that the time had come to write a “Sightings” column about Theme Time Radio Hour, the radio show that Bob Dylan hosts each Wednesday morning on XM’s Deep Tracks channel. It is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting and original music-oriented shows on radio, and the fact that it is produced by XM strikes me as no less worthy of note.
Is Bob Dylan bringing us a taste of the future of satellite radio–or a relic from the distant past of terrestrial radio? To find out, pick up a copy of Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, turn to the new “Lifestyle” section, and check out “Sightings.”
UPDATE: Read the whole thing here.