By Robert Surratt
Our group, made up of Mariana, Elaine, Patrick, Roselia, Kat, and I chose to do Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. We each took responsibility for one or more aspects of the play in addition to our character roles. We selected a theme, script, set design, costuming, and direction. We chose to begin our production with a short sonnet to give context to our play and even added an Easter egg for the Professor and the rest of the class.
Selecting Our Production and Roles
I’m not sure how many of us in our group were previously familiar with the play except Kat, who suggested it would make for a good show due to its high slapstick factor. We settled on the play and immediately set to assigning roles and tasks amongst our group.
Roles:
Mariana: Aegon-A Cuban national detained at U.S. customs.
Elaine: Duke Solinus/First Merchant-U.S. Immigration officer/Cigar shop owner
Patrick: Antipholus of Syracuse-Cuban national
Bob: Dromio of Ephesus/Syracuse-Servant to Antipholus of Ephesus/Syracuse
Roselia: Adriana-Hangry house-wife to Antipholus of Ephesus, a local business man.
Kat: Luciana-Sister to Adriana
Theme
Patrick originally came up with the great idea to set our production at the Southwest U.S. border in the present day. The play itself deals with border issues and this seemed like a natural setting considering our familiarity with the region. However, as we hashed out details of what merchants and law enforcement characters would look like, we eventually decided to set our production on Southeastern shores of Florida. This made more sense as there is a long scene that details a shipwreck and different directions taken by some of the central characters.
Script
My role was to write the script. I chose three scenes that introduced the play and its main story arcs and characters, while providing equitable stage time for each person in our group. With the help of Mariana, each of us wound up with somewhere between 50 and 70 lines but only a couple of us needed to be in more than one scene. We originally considered doing scenes that would cover beginning, middle, and end but found that we be difficult regarding logistics.
Set Design
We all pretty much knew that we wanted to utilize the AV equipment in the room. With Mariana’s long and detailed opening scene, in which she gives backstory for the play, she volunteered to do illustrations to assist with this portion. Her illustrations push she scene forward and gives the production momentum. Patrick contributed images to the slideshow to further express his original vision of the production’s theme as well. Roselia also contributed with various set pieces such as handcuffs, tableware, and other miscellaneous items.
Narration, Sound, and Scene Transitions
Roselia volunteered to write a sonnet that would assist in setting the stage of the play. This is our intro piece which opens the play. She wrote a great poem which followed the rules of the sonnet, giving us more room to express a coherent storyline without trying to cover too much or too little.
Elaine’s role was to provide our soundtrack. She found our transition sound effects and theme music to introduce the marketplace and kitchen scenes. We wanted to give a nod here to the class itself by using the song “Show Me the Way” by Peter Frampton from the album Frampton Comes Alive! as our transition music to the kitchen scene with Luciana and Adriana.
Costumes
Mariana’s main role was the group’s costumes. She suggested styles of dress and color palettes for us. Following our theme, it was decided that Antipholus and Dromio would wear Hawaiian style or guayabera shirts. Since I was playing a character that has an identical twin, my costumes could be two hawaiian shirts that are similar but different colors. Kat and Roselia’s costumes would be casual/comfortable day clothes. Aegeon would also don a Hawaiian style/guayabera shirt and Elaine playing the Duke would wear a mustache with aviator sunglasses along with an olive green uniform. Her merchant costume would simply be a t-shirt.
Direction
Kat served in the role of director as she had the most experience in the group with theater and staged plays. She helped us with underlying tones and moods each character would assume. She directed with regards to logistics (i.e. how to move from scene to scene), as well as gave instruction for some of the slapstick in the play. This direction proved essential to making the play move smooth, make sense, and be entertaining.
Overall, our production provides an introduction to the play that gives the audience a feel of what is to come. We set the play to a modern theme and showed that life is still very much the same today as it was in Shakespeare’s time. In the end, the audience gets a taste of the play and it’s capacity for both real-life issues as well as its comedic value without us biting off more than we could chew in a half hour’s time.
Shakespeare Comes Alive! 