Student's Workbook 1A - Shakespeare WA
Student's Workbook 1A - Shakespeare WA
Student's Workbook 1A - Shakespeare WA
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Mr. Bruce-Lockhart and Mr. Frame, as the visiting Antipholus and Dromio, and Sam<br />
Swainsbury and Jon Trenchard as the home-town Ephesian characters of the same<br />
names, have been attired and coiffed to such distinctively lurid effect that you don‘t<br />
really look beyond the surface. Each set of twins is dressed identically (as this<br />
improbable story demands), and that first superficial double image sticks with you.<br />
Antipholus of Syracuse is a brooding bachelor, given to reflections on identity;<br />
Antipholus of Ephesus is a hedonistic married man, given to buying bling and<br />
consorting with prostitutes. But they share a tendency to beat up their manservants<br />
when they feel they are being disrespected or misinformed. Both Dromios complain<br />
often of being treated as whip-scarred beasts of burden.<br />
In this version, though, it isn‘t only the Dromios who come in for hard treatment.<br />
Physical abuse appears to be the lingua franca of Ephesus. Antipholus of Ephesus‘s<br />
jealous wife, Adriana (Robert Hands), keeps S&M toys in the bedroom; Luciana<br />
(David Newman) her virgin sister, has evidently studied jiujitsu, and the head of the<br />
town priory, the abbess Aemelia (Chris Myles) dresses like a dominatrix and<br />
brandishes a riding crop.<br />
A policeman (Dominic Tighe) has his own nightstick pushed up his rectum, while<br />
another (a conjurer, played by Tony Bell, and tediously embodied here as a Texasstyle<br />
evangelist) suffers having a lighted sparkler inserted in the same orifice. And of<br />
course instances of old-fashioned fisticuffs are legion. The best parts of these acts of<br />
violence are the ways in which they are aurally annotated by different musical<br />
sounds. (The kazoo and the xylophone are particularly well deployed.)<br />
The cast members sustain a high level of vigor, though they let their costumes do<br />
most of their character definition. Mr. Bruce-Lockhart, a loutish Petruchio in<br />
Propeller‘s ―Shrew,‖ makes an impression by showing his (relatively) sensitive side<br />
as the addled Antipholus of Syracuse. And he and Mr. Frame, as his Dromio, are<br />
very funny executing what is perhaps the ultimate ―How fat is she?‖ routine.<br />
Since nearly all the characters exist in a state of high exasperation, they tend to<br />
speak fast and frantically. This means that some of what they say will be<br />
incomprehensible to theatergoers unfamiliar with the text. What with problems of<br />
inaudibility afflicting the Broadway revival of Tom Stoppard‘s ―Arcadia,‖ imported<br />
British-born productions would seem to be in surprising need of elocution lessons.<br />
Ben Brantley<br />
Source: http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/theater/reviews/propellers-comedy-of-errorsat-brooklyn-academy-review.html<br />
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