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Critical Commentary Comedy of Errors

In this essay I am going to discuss The Globes most recent production of A Comedy of Errors and
how they adapted the staging of the play for a modern audience. I will first start with a
generalization of the globes characteristics and how they made use of them; I will then give some
details about the director and comment on her approach on the text and how she used the space
and the audience, moving on to discussing the scenography and then the directors concept and how
well it came across and the actor-audience relationships.

The architectural structure of the globe itself is something that is visually striking and somewhat
unique, taking the audience from the big uniform clump and separating them in ranked groups, from
people standing up in front of the stage to people sitting on the balcony. Thats the first quality that
a Shakespeare production at the globe can have; the opportunity to play with that structure is there
for you to take it and address to different audience groups The architecture of the Globe Theatre
inverts the accepted relationship between ticket price and proximity to the stage, reinventing the
pre-Restoration norms. Suddenly the passivity of the darkened space is contrasted by a space where
actors and audience members are exposed to natural light as well as to wind and rain. The audience
is vertical and surrounds the acting space but it is a divided group, not a uniform mass, and is
addressed as such. Christie (2008). All those factors that Christie mentioned in her paper are of big
influence for the audiences experience of the productions.
A Comedy of Errors was on from the 30th of August up to the 12th of October and had as a directorial
eye the young Blanche McIntyre.
At only 33 years old, Blanche McIntyre, the director of this production has made a name for herself,
going up the ladder of the brightest contemporary directors, had won the Critics Circle award for

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the most promising newcomer, and best director Off West End Theatre awards by 2012, David
(2014). In his article he is also talking about her way of working hard to make it look all very easy
and I think you can definitely see a little bit of her input in the globes production of comedy of
errors.
The Comedy of Errors is a very traditional Shakespearean comedy where two sets of twins get put in
the same city, and all the characters get confused when they encounter Antipholus of Ephesus and
Antipholus of Syracuse both having the same name and both having twin servants, also with the
same names, Dromio. It starts off with the deadline that the King gives to Egeon before executing
him and with the speech of a desperate father that is in search of his child. The comedy comes out of
the fact that the wrong Antipholus and Dromio show up all the time instead of the right ones and
then, the other pair gets in trouble because of them.
The play ends happily, with the traditional resolution as everyone finds out they were actually Long
lost twins and Egeon was not executed in the end.
The Globe have educated their audience over the years for the traditional Shakespearean theatre
they produce, but I just get the feeling that they do that before every show. It has become a
tradition. I thought it was very interesting how Blanche prepared the audience for the devastatingly
funny production that had just started. The first scene was literally one of the Dromios Struggling to
get down a piece of clothing that was put up to dry. His failing attempts were visually a very
satisfying preparation for the comedy that was to follow. But it was not just that, this Dromio was
creating a relationship with the audience. I think that was what Blanche was trying to achieve and it
worked great for me and for the rest of the audience, judging by the loud laughs that were
consuming The Globe.
Blanche had a very interesting view on the Characters delineation. There has been a lot of debating
regarding Shakespeares female characters and how they should be portrayed but I believe Blanche
found a very interesting way of portraying them, starting it off with Adriana at the beginning
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stamping and shouting and literally hitting Dromio. She was fuming because her husband was not
back in time for dinner. It was obvious that the director wanted to create a very strong personality
for Adriana, she was a very imposing woman. Dromio was absolutely terrified by her fury. The fact
that he was so scared of her also gave us a little bit of background, reassured us it was not an
isolated incident, she had lost her temper in the past and that just showed how forceful Adriana
was. That takes us to the relationship between characters, which was very clear, the lines between
the characters relationships were evident. Although you could tell the different statuses of the
characters, it was illustrated in such a modern manner that it was not disturbing. For example the
scene where Antipholus gets angry with Dromio for not following the right order. It was a very
physically satisfying scene and even though the Antipholus was the master and Dromio the servant,
their argument did not crash down into Antipholus dominating the scene, Dromio stuck up for
himself and explained himself.
The relationship between characters was not the only one taken care of. As I mentioned earlier on,
the venue had a great influence in the way this production was created; Because I believe , if you
take this production and put it on another stage it would not have the same effect. The actoraudience relationship was very well defined, actors carefully addressing to different groups of the
audience and speaking for everyone. We even had a very nice reference to a specific member of the
audience at this point in the show when it was mentioned a bald man and the actors just picked up
on a member of the audience that was bald, so we all had a good giggle about it. I thought that was
a good way to include the audience and break the fourth wall.
The stage movement was made to look simple, but if you step back and have a second think about it
you realise how meticulously that it must have been thought about. For example, let us go back to
the very first scene I was talking previously, where Dromio was insistently trying to get the piece of
clothing down, that scene required two ladders and a very high physically qualified actor. Blanche
McIntyre included some stunt elements that made it even funnier and you could see the same style

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later on in the show when Anitpholus and Dromio get locked out of their own home. Both Dromios
have a bit of contact at the door; the door very cleverly used by McIntyre with small square doors
within it, Dromio outside the door, that one that we could see , would go half way through the little
square doors and the other one would come out half way through another square. That created a
very impressive effect on the audience, as well as justifying how Antipholus was getting very
confused as the imagery was striking since the distances between the little squares were awkwardly
long. That was always a tricky scene and the way Blanche staged it was surprisingly effective.
The designer also helped with this, it was very clear they were working towards the same concept
and output. The level of degradation of the set was the same with the level of degradation regarding
the situation in the narrative. The scenography was utilized to the full, from the tall stance of the
venue to the head of the statue from the set and the pillars, the clocks and doors, the balcony,
everything had a purpose. Another link to the modern flair that McIntyre definitely touched upon
was the contemporary references. For example, when the servants come to clean up the mess and
one of them picks up the head of the statue and holds it up like the famous skull in Hamlet and then
they hop up on their brooms and start playing Quidditch the famous game they play at Hogwarts.
Overall the effective use of the space and the structure of the building, the smart use of the set and
the direct contact with the audience, as well as the unique vision of Blanche McIntyre on the
playwright made this a very up to date production for one of the best comedies written by
Shakespeare without taking out the classic elements of Shakespearean theatre.

Reference List:

Carson, C.& Karim-Cooper, F. (2008) ShakespearesGlobe:a Theatrical Experiment. Cambridge,

Cambridge University Press

Jays, D (2014) Blanche McIntyre: the stage director who works hard to make it all look easy
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Available from : http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/oct/05/blanche-mcintyre-stage-directoraccolade
Accessed: [25th of November 2014]

No author (2014) The comedy of Errors

Available from: http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/education/discovery-space/previousproductions/the-comedy-of-errors-5
Accessed: [25th of November 2014]