Princeton Rep kicks off its season with the farcical ‘Comedy of Errors.’
By: Matt Smith
Had William Shakespeare somehow survived into the late 20th century, he might have recognized elements of his own work in a popular mid-1980s TV series, Miami Vice. With its frantic action, twisting plots and outlandish costumes, the show bore striking similarities to, say, The Comedy of Errors.
Tipping a Panama hat to detectives Crockett and Tubbs, the Princeton Rep Shakespeare Festival has set its season-opening staging of the Bard’s twin-filled 1594 near-farce against a backdrop of pink flamingoes, white sport jackets and black intentions.
"There are a lot of merchants in the play and business dealings you’re not quite sure about," says director Tom Rowan of the production, "giving a shady, slightly crooked air to it like there’s a street life and nightlife going on that’s a little bit dangerous.
"I came up with Miami, partly because of some of the associations I had with music and the sort of 1980s imagery that came out of that," adds Mr. Rowan, "which I think now can play really strongly for comedy."
The Comedy of Errors runs June 27 to July 13 at Community Park North in Princeton, and features Princeton Rep favorite Nell Gwynn as Adriana. Ms. Gwynn, who attended high school and college in South Florida, remembers that era with a devilish fondness.
"Miami is such an interesting town, and that was such a funny period," she says. "It was a little bit seedy, a very unpredictable atmosphere very sexy and sort of sticky."
Ms. Gwynn, who also will play Mrs. Ford in Princeton Rep’s modern-day New Jersey The Merry Wives of (West) Windsor in August, says the Miami setting reminds her of a 1983 Al Pacino mobster film, Scarface.
"This is probably wrong, and the director doesn’t share this, but ‘Scarface’ is my favorite movie of all time," says the New York City-based actress, a veteran of three previous Princeton Rep shows. "When I saw the costume and set designs I thought, ‘This is so exciting. I finally get to be in ‘Scarface.’
"I have a Joan Collins, ‘Dynasty’ kind of look Adriana is a bit of a drama queen, anyway," jokes Ms. Gwynn. "I get to wear swimsuits with sarongs and very big hats, and then a pantsuit sort of jumpsuit with a really big belt and I’m hoping they’ll let me wear some sort of turban."
Mr. Rowan has some experience taking the Bard out of Elizabethan England and into the 20th century. He directed a Noel Coward-inspired, 1920s flapper Love’s Labour’s Lost, and more recently a teen-age 1950s Brooklyn The Two Gentlemen of Verona both at Theater Ten Ten in New York. However, he warns, attempts to alter the time and location of a Shakespeare play sometimes fail because of too much emphasis on clever costumes, without working the update into every nook and cranny of the play.
"I believe that a concept has to be pulled through every aspect of a production," Mr. Rowan says. "It needs to inform the way the relationships are portrayed, the way the actors move, and to some degree the way they talk, although we’re still using the original Shakespeare text. You really have to be always aware of what kind of social interactions are going on in that culture and be faithful to that.
"My philosophy is that once you’ve decided on a period switch or a location shift for a Shakespeare play, you should be able to get that by watching a rehearsal of the play that’s not done in costume. You should be able to tell just by the way the story is being told."
For Ms. Gwynn, who developed her love for Shakespeare at a performing arts high school, the fun and the challenge is in making sometimes hard-to-follow language understandable to the audience.
"I love it, it’s beautiful," she says, "but to move the audience it’s important they know where I’m going. If I’m not doing my job, they’re not going to know where the story is going and then it’s no fun. It’s all there in the language if you just know how to use it.
"It absolutely moves me," professes Ms. Gwynn. "It’s not all the time you can talk about Shakespeare and how it makes your heart explode, but that’s really what it does for me. It’s so wonderful and I think that it’s so accessible if it’s done right
Shakespeare was written for the people, it wasn’t written to be an elevated art form. The plays, even the histories, are like soap operas there’s sex, intrigue, innuendo, power and money."
"I just love the stories so much, the ideas of the plays and the language, so I think it’s really about trusting that he’s a master storyteller," concludes Mr. Rowan. "For every new Shakespeare play that I do, I try to connect it to today’s audience, because the plays have been done for hundreds of years. If you’re going to do it again, I think you have to bring a lot of yourself to it. You really have to find a way to connect to the world that your audience knows."
The Princeton Rep Shakespeare Festival opens with The Comedy of Errors at the Pettoranello Gardens Amphitheatre, Community Park North, Princeton, June 27-July 13. The Merry Wives of (West) Windsor plays Aug. 1-17. Performances: Fri.-Sun. 8 p.m.; The Merry Wives of (West) Windsor also will be performed in Palmer Square, Princeton, Aug. 9, 2 p.m. Free tickets available at Thomas Sweet, 29 Palmer Square, Princeton, Mon.-Sat. 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Sun. noon-5 p.m.; Wegmans, 240 Nassau Park Boulevard, West Windsor, daily 6 a.m.-midnight; or at the door starting at 6:30 p.m. $10 donation suggested for adults. For information, call (609) 921-3682. On the Web: www.princetonrep.org