The Comedy of Errors

Our Shakespeare Society will be going on its second theatre outing of the year on April 27th, to the Abbey Theatre production of Shakespeare's first and shortest play, The Comedy of Errors (produced here in 2000), directed by Jason Byrne, who also directed the Julius Caesar we saw in 2007. At the bottom is the Abbey's trailer.

In the Irish Times, Peter Crawley, here, calls the production 'self-aware', and writes that 'with bad debts and easy credit undermining society, the play comes off as a fierce economic satire. Any similarity to our own situation is purely intentional. That shiver of recognition makes the head-smacking contrivances, the zany gags and the cast’s witty embellishments all the sharper. And though Byrne often seems busy deconstructing the jokes, letting the opening scene become an unpardonable snore, everything that follows is good, edgy fun.'

There's also an enthusiastic review here in the Independent, which calls it 'an exuberant, affectionate job ... respectful without being reverential, and quite wonderfully physical and fast-moving.'

In yesterday's Sunday Times, Declan Burke wrote that 'bare brick, mobile scaffolding and contemporary costuming set the tone for Jason Byrne's postmodern take ... Peter Daly (as Dromio of Syracuse) and Ciaran O'Brien (as Dromio of Ephesus) steal the show with two superb comic performances.'