OSF part 3: Comedy of Errors

At 5:30 on Thursday it thunderstormed, but the weather gods were on our side and it stopped before the show (which was outdoors in the Elizabethan).

This version of Comedy of Errors took place in the Wild West, which was a great setting for it. Saloon doors swinging and guns going off really add to the farce atmosphere. Oh yeah, and it was a musical. Now, I can see all of these things making a great Comedy of Errors, but they changed the text! Tons of it! Only the Dromios spoke the original Shakespeare. So I get that they told us the story, and it was certainly funny and successful, but I felt gypped of the text. It was like they were trying to tell their version of the original Plautus farce, but bowed their heads to the fact that Shakespeare added the Dromio twins, and therefore left their text alone... I don't know. It was bothersome.

Mike's cousin, Paul Tazewell, designed the costumes, so I feel it necessary to record that they were excellent. (He also designed costumes for In the Heights, Bring in da Noise Bring in da Funk, Caroline or Change and The Color Purple, all on Broadway).

It was very satisfying to see Emily Sophia Knapp turn from sharp, short, blonde Hermia into a beautiful pinned-up brunette Luciana. The cast was largely impeccable, actually. I loved John Tufts and Tasso Feldman playing the Dromios (although it would be impossible to ever mix the two up)- you would never have known it was John Tufts after seeing him as Puck without reading the program. Tasso Feldman was predictably both adorable and hilarious, seeing that he was essentially reprising his role as Christopher from On the Razzle last year. Oh yeah, and they can all sing. So that's kind of cool. I'm starting to predict casting for The Music Man next year.

What? Yes, that's right. They're doing The Music Man. Everyone wants to know why, well I haven't talked to Bill Rauch himself, but I am inferring from what I do know that he is trying to bring an essentially American piece of theatre to OSF. What's more American than musical theatre, and what musical is more American than one set in River City, Iowa?

We'll see.