In Propeller's brisk, bawdy rendition, the Antipholuses are punk-coiffed dudes in purple jeans, their mix-and-match servants, the Dromios, mop-topped innocents in Pac-Man T-shirts. In the lanky, flouncing person of Robert Hands, Antipholus of Ephesus's wife, Adriana, sports leggings, leopard print, and clunky silver heels as well as false eyelashes and a bald spot. Striking petulant poses and holding her arms in such a way that her nail polish might best dry, she is surprisingly sympathetic. As her ameliorating sister, Luciana, David Newman is a dowdy soul in pointy glasses and prom dress who more than holds her own when the pugilism breaks out. The actors not only sing but also play various musical instruments and, as in Richard III, supply punctuation and sound effects. Apparently indefatigable, they even perform a concert of droll numbers while soliciting for charity in the lobby at intermission!
What is most remarkable about this Comedy of Errors is not its barrage of terrific ideas — among them casting the snake-oil conjurer Dr. Pinch as a tent-revivalist preacher — but the precision with which the mayhem ensues, without a beat missed in either Shakespeare's text or the oft-inspired comic action. Every pratfall or poke to an eyeball is executed with as much exactness as gusto by a strapping bunch of guys whose acting and athleticism prove a collision devoutly to be wished.
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Dreams and portents loom large in Richard III . So it seems fitting that John Douglas Thompson's dynamic Dick Crookback should deliver the play's famed opening lines from a supine position on the floor, as if envisaging in slumber "the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this sun of York."
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Theater
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, BU School of Theatre, Theater, Huntington Theatre Company, RICHARD III, Boston University Theatre, Comedy of Errors, English, Less
