Comedy of Errors Central Park- Doubling Tricks?

[darquegk]

Posted: 9/29/13 at 10:51pm

I just saw a fantastically entertaining production of The Comedy of Errors near me, and any time the show is done with the now-traditional doubling of the two twins, the question of how to pull off the scenes where the twins narrowly miss each other, then appear at the same time comes up.

I heard multiple times that the Central Park production did some very interesting things to make this work, and I am wondering if the production I just saw used the same stunts and effects, since the doubling list was pretty close to the Shakespeare in the Park cast doublings as well. Can anyone tell me what they did?

[Gothampc]

Posted: 9/29/13 at 11:35pm

It was done with simple costume changes and of course acting choices. I didn't think it worked though because in the last scene when they all meet up, two extras were used, but they had their backs to the audience. I personally don't think the doubling works as well as having four different actors.

[darquegk]

Posted: 9/30/13 at 12:01am

The production that I saw never used doubles except for a few "illusion" tricks in which what appeared to be the arm of one Dromio pulled another character offstage left as the real Dromio entered moments later from the other side of the stage.

From your description, it sounds like the production I saw was more inventive and effective with its staging of the finale. Dromio and Antipholus are inside the priory, a three-story stage structure, when the "other" Dromio and Antipholus rush inside to meet their long-lost twins. Much hullabaloo from inside, and then the "four" brothers begin appearing at the second and third story windows, opening the latches to pop out and deliver their lines, then shutting them again, but never quite appearing at the same time. As the scene went on, the back and forth between the brothers became more and more rapid, and a stage manager/double's arm was used in a few instances as one Antipholus's arm around the other's shoulders, or holding the chain around the other's neck. I found it highly effective and a clever combination of old vaudeville magic and staging conventions.

[ChairinMain]

Posted: 9/30/13 at 3:35am

darq -

I saw a production using effectively the same premise and I'm wondering now if it were the same; I wonder if it was the same production? The one I saw was directed by the wonderful Danny Scheie, who has remounted it several times (I caught it at the now-sadly defunct Shakespeare Santa Cruz.) He uses only seven actors in his production and there's lots of inventive doubling and rapid changes. In the mounting I caught, the Syracuse twins spoke with southern accents and the Ephesis Twins were from Brooklyn. Does this sound familiar?

[darquegk]

Posted: 9/30/13 at 11:45am

No, this one had a cast of about fifteen. Regional accents were not used- rather, the "foreign" pair were somewhat delicate, almost milquetoasts, while the "native" pair were rougher around the edges, more boisterous and masculine. They wore jackets and hats, while the visiting pair did not.

The visual style of the piece, due to the constant references to dreaming and altered states of heaven, hell and reality, was based around the 1920s Dada Surrealist movement. The cameo of Dr. Pinch resembled Salvador Dali explicitly.

[ChairinMain]

Posted: 10/1/13 at 1:53am

I have a question for those who saw the Delacorte Production - When the Body Doubles were used at the end, did they speak or did Ferguson and Linklater switch back and forth between characters? I recently saw a production in Marin which used this technique for the end, and the way the actors and the Body doubles swapped roles back and forth was probably the most technically impressive thing in the whole show.