THEATER REVIEW: COMEDY OF ERRORS

Isabella Lubin and Finola Prendergast (class of 2008) write: Shakespeare’s play, produced at HHS in mid-February, deals with the wacky mishaps that ensue when two pairs of identical twins, separated at birth and mysteriously dressed in identical outfits, end up in the same city. Except for the fact that Aegeon (the noble twins’ father) was unable to speak through his laughter at the end of the evening, the performance was wonderful. We particularly enjoyed the comedic stylings of Dromio of Syracuse (Eleanor Reid), who, as servant to the foreign twin, was slapped and thrown across the stage in the name of art. We liked the enormous schnozz Tom Mellert wore as Pinch, a quack doctor charged with banishing a demon from one of the twins. In a stroke of casting genius Hannah Levinger played a nun and a mother of two children, ecumenically dressed in a habit/burqa hybrid. Her fellow players seemed as amused by this as her friends, and this led to the aforementioned laughter.

We also enjoyed the costumes, which contemporized the production and allowed the always-fashionable pairing of a gray suit and All-Star Converse sneakers. The director, too, overcame the problematic exposition in the first scene with appreciable ingenuity: namely, inject action with puppets. What play cannot be improved by puppetry?

All those who missed this show, missed out.