Shakespeare’s script is living in the actors. The choreography for the scene changes is finalized. The props gathered. Entrances are timed. The lighting cues are on paper. The music is set. The final tweaks to the costumes are done.
The curtain goes up on the 5th season of the Charlotte Shakespeare Festival on June 3 at 8:00 at The Green in Uptown Charlotte.
Comedy of Errors, one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, opens the Festival’s season. It’s a familiar Shakespeare story, doubled. The Bard often uses mistaken identity as a plot device. In Comedy of Errors, he introduces not one, but two sets of identical twin brothers and their identical twin bondmen.
We learn from an old Syracusian merchant that the two brothers and their servants were separated during a raging storm at sea. Twenty-five years after their separation, Antipholus of Syracuse, searching for his lost brother, lands in Ephesus with his Dromio. As chance - and Shakespeare - would have it, the other twin Antipholus and his servant, Dromio, live in the city.
When their paths crisscross, the town’s inhabitants are convulsed in confusion. A gold chain becomes a flash point for the chaos. The Antipholuses and Dromios are mixed and matched. Finally, Shakespeare sorts everything out and adds a happy surprise to the last scene.
The Charlotte Shakespeare Festival (www.charlotteshakespeare.com) presents Comedy of Errors under the stars on The Green Uptown from June 3-20. Admission is free. Bring a blanket, food and drink and come early to enjoy Festivities, the special pre-show entertainment.
