The Comedy of Errors - Globe Theatre

CoE set - elaborate, with lots of props!

This is the third CoE I've seen at the Globe, but it doesn't seem a particularly common Shakespeare play to be put on. Perhaps because of its unashamed silliness and lack of beautiful passages? Its frequent references to servant-beating and less frequent but still rather disturbing references to domestic violence? Or because a purely comedic play is more difficult to perform successfully than people tend to think? Whatever the reason, all the versions I've seen at the Globe have been very well done and VERY funny.

The CoE is about a pair of identical twin masters and a pair of identical twin servants who have been separated for a long time - each master with a servant - who all end up in Ephesus. After the opening scene the play involves many instances of mistaken identity, as the master and servant pairs split up and meet members of the other pair. Hilarity ensues. Of course, neither the two masters nor the two servants encounter each other until the final scene.

There's potential for a lot of physical, slapstick comedy in the CoE, which, in this production included an octopus being tossed about, a turkey covering the head of one of the Dromios for a prolonged period of time, a food/scenery fight and a nod to Harry Potter in the form of two servants clearing up the mess from the food/scenery fight with brooms and then wordlessly deciding to play Quidditch with a golden ball that had fallen off part of the scenery.

I thought Egeon, father of the Antipholuses, was a weak link, as I couldn't hear much of what he said. And I was leaning against the stage (albeit to the far side).

Things that were especially good about this production: 

• The opening scene-setting 'Arabian'-type song! 
• The costumes! Renaissance-style costumes with a classical antiquarian twist (or classical antiquarian costumes with a Renaissance-style twist). Bright and colourful and made you feel as though you were in different climes, despite the chilliness of the night.
• The set! I liked the columns and statues and the way in which the signs on the houses could be turned, to show what the building was.
• The fact that the two Antipholuses and Dromios each had distinctive personalities.
• The bit at the end where the two Dromios were alone together for the first time was adorable, as they were both shy of each other and didn't know how to behave.

The basic plot is so ridiculous and funny and unrealistic that it's not difficult to dismiss the more...unsavoury...elements of the play mentioned in the first paragraph as just part of the silliness and hilarity. However, the allusions to wife-beating, plus the nagging-wife-who-drives-her-husband-to-distraction trope do make me feel uncomfortable and lessen my enjoyment of this play. I also think too much of the humour comes from the Dromios talking about their beatings at the hands of the Antipholuses. My favourite Shakespeare comedy has to be The Merry Wives of Windsor, which is not only extremely funny when done right, but also kind of proto-feminist.

Next: The Man Born to be King