Review: 'The Comedy of Errors'

Along with "Twelfth Night" and "As You Like It," "The Comedy of Errors" is one of Shakespeare's most popular comedies. Its time-honored plot of two sets of twins, separated at birth, reappearing in the same city on the same day allows creative directors to explore not only farcical shenanigans but also themes of identity, alienation, and sexuality. The Brothers Karamazov made it into a juggling circus. The all-male troupe Propeller injected it with a shot of testosterone through single-gendered casting. Rodgers and Hart gave it the musical comedy treatment with "The Boys From Syracuse," and it was transformed into a rap rhapsody in "The Bomb-Itty of Errors." The National Theatre of Great Britain's current production, broadcast to cinemas worldwide from London, manages to fully exploit its comic possibilities, explore issues of immigration, and create a believable and moving story of a family reunited after being buffeted by the winds of political change.

The opening of Dominic Cooke's gritty and sexy staging is unexpectedly dark. A hooded figure is led by a well-dressed thug, his gum-chewing moll, and their gang of toughs through designer Bunny Christie's crumbling contemporary urban environment. It could be a scene out of "The Sopranos." But the authority figure is the Duke of Ephesus, and the masked victim is Aegeon, a lost merchant of Syracuse who is seeking his missing son and wife. Traditionally, this character is treated as a mere provider of exposition, but Cooke stages his story of the separated siblings as a tale of refugees fleeing chaotic African countries, complete with war zones and airlifts. Thus the comic story line is deepened with a human dimension.

Christie's Ephesus closely resembles modern London, with its multicultural mix, sleazy neighborhoods, and swank high-rises. The slapstick action is accompanied by a quartet of Romanian musicians. Antipholus and Dromio, of Syracuse, have heavy Caribbean accents and evoke witchcraft and spells in attempts to ward off the strange behavior they encounter, while their counterparts of Ephesus speak like native Londoners and come across as second-generation hipsters.

Cooke blends the realistic setting with an intoxicatingly insane hilarity that includes violent pratfalls and fart jokes. Yet the characters are flesh and blood rather than guffawing stereotypes. When the family is gathered at the abbey—here it's a drug clinic in a fashionable part of town—Cooke has them embrace in a circle of warmth, and it's totally credible that they are related and restored to each other.

The biggest name in the cast is Lenny Henry, one of Britian's most popular comedians, who plays Antipholus of Syracuse. While Henry is wildly expressive and nimble, both vocally and physically—watch his manic ballet of violence with a billiard cue—he fits perfectly into the ensemble. Chris Jarman is suave and sensuous as his worldlier twin. As the Dromios, Daniel Poyser and Lucian Msamati are ingratiating clowns. Claudie Blakley sweetly tempers the shrewish side of Adriana, the caustic wife of Antipholus of Ephesus, while Michelle Terry inventively plays with elongated vowels and pregnant pauses as her timid sister Luciana. Joseph Mydell and Pamela Nomvete take the usually ignored roles of Aegeon and Aemilia, the parents of the Antipholae, and endow them with backstory and backbone.

This is not your usual "Comedy of Errors." It's a thinking person's version of what is routinely treated as pure farce, and it is definitely worth a visit to your local movie theater.

Presented by National Theatre Live in cinemas nationwide. Screenings began March 1. For a list of upcoming screenings, visit www.ntlive.com.