Arts editor HELEN MUSA previews Bell Shakespeare’s upcoming new production of “The Comedy of Errors”.

SHAKESPEARE’S “The Comedy of Errors” is one of the most popular plays ever written. 

Often frowned upon by scholars as an early play unworthy of the Bard, it is descended from Roman comedy and Italian Commedia dell’arte and is the prototype for Shakespeare’s mistaken identity scenario, which reaches its apogee in “Twelfth Night”.

It is also the forerunner to several famous musicals, such as “The Boys from Syracuse.” 

But there’s a lot more to “The Comedy of Errors” than meets the eye, as audiences have found in the past when Bell Shakespeare has brought the play to Canberra, including a memorable occasion when former ACT arts minister Bill Wood, himself an identical twin, turned up to a production with his politician twin brother from Queensland and caused both confusion and delight.

One thing that most people know about “The Comedy of Errors” is that its star turns are the identical twin blokes, the servants called Dromio.

Blokes, did I say? Well, according to Janine Watson, the director of the Bell Shakespeare production coming to The Playhouse soon, that’s not necessarily so. In her version, the twin Dromios, played by Julia Billington and Ella Prince, are neither specifically male nor female, but non-binary, with their personal pronouns changed to “they/them”.

Watson argues her case forcefully, adding that it’s not the only bit of gender fluidity in the play, for – and she suspects Shakespeare wouldn’t have minded at all – she’s also turned Antipholus of Syracuse’s sister-in-law, Luciana, into a male, Luciano.

That means that when “he” finds himself attracted to his brother-in-law, it has a certain frisson of the sort that would’ve been common in Shakespeare’s days when boys played women, but which also allows for genuinely touching moments.

Some of the characters are conventionally gendered, like the more upper-crust Antipholus twins, played by Felix Jozeps and Skyler Ellis, but, she says, the flipping of genders is a powerful thing to see.

“By making the twins Dromios non-binary, we see how they live in their real lives. We’re not being politically correct, we’re just placing them in those roles and then letting them take that space.” 

Watson has a long history with Bell as a mainstage actor and a director with its “Players” company, who, after graduating from the National Theatre Drama School in Melbourne, trained with Zen Zen Zo company, known for its physical theatre, so you can be sure that in this production there will be a great deal of slapstick, indeed she promises it.

She was supposed to do the play a couple of years ago until covid got in the way and has seen “The Comedy of Errors” in various iterations about four or five times, first at age 17 done by Launceston Repertory Society and then as one of the shows in her graduating year.

This is her mainstage debut for Bell and while at first she tended to agree with the “inherited perception” that it’s a silly play with not much depth in the characters, she took the time during lockdown to do a lot of reading and found it “so beautiful and so poignant”.

“People argue that comedy is totally different from tragedy, but the very first speech of the play by Egeon is like a Greek tragedy with a big long prologue, then it moves into comedy,” she says. 

“Many people suppose that comedy tells us nothing about the characters, but in ‘The Comedy of Errors,’ we learn something about each of them as they realise their mistakes.

“I looked deeply into the sensibility of these people who have been ripped apart from their families… just like in ‘Twelfth Night’, Shakespeare used comedy to explore romance and lost love.”

She set it in a hedonistic seaside town during the 1970s, which was known for both its liberation movements and its colourful dressing. Set and costume designer Hugh O’Connor had a lot of fun making it completely over the top.

“The Comedy of Errors”, The Playhouse, September 30-October 8.

News all day, every day at CityNews.com.au.