Review Roundup: THE COMEDY OF ERRORS Opens at Shakespeare in the Park

The Public Theater's THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, the first show of The Public's 2013 season of free Shakespeare in the Park, opened tonight, June 18, at the Delacorte. Directed by Daniel Sullivan, THE COMEDY OF ERRORS features Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Hamish Linklater as Dromio and Antipholus respectively and will run through Sunday, June 30.

The complete cast of THE COMEDY OF ERRORS features J. Clint Allen (Ensemble); De'Adre Aziza (Courtesan); Becky Ann Baker(Emilia); Emily Bergl (Adriana); Keith Eric Chappelle (Balthasar); Robert Creighton (Angelo); Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Dromio); Reggie Gowland (Ensemble); Jonathan Hadary (Egeon/Pinch); Bryan Langlitz (Ensemble); Hamish Linklater (Antipholus); Heidi Schreck (Luciana); Skipp Sudduth (Duke/Luce); and Jessica Wu (Ensemble). The non-equity ensemble includes Tyler Caffall, ReEd Campbell, Brian T. Lawton, Michael McArthur, Rachel McMullin, Natalie Woolams-Torres, and Adrienne Weidert.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Charles Isherwood, The New York Times: Yet without stinting on the knockabout humor...Mr. Sullivan and his top-to-bottom terrific cast have brought enriching measures of warmth and style to this oft-undervalued play...Mr. Linklater and Mr. Ferguson leap nimbly between their roles...Mr. Ferguson has the most ripely funny roles...A natural imp with a clown's expressive face, he turns Dromio's string of geographical metaphors describing the ample figure of this aggressively lustful wench into a rollicking comic set piece. Often I've found myself crying for mercy when Shakespeare's characters engage in elbow-in-the-ribs ribaldry; with Mr. Ferguson's impeccable phrasing and timing, I would have been happy for it to last longer.

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter: Even flagrant liars who claim never to be bored by Shakespeare generally concede that The Comedy of Errors can be a chore. An early entry in which thematic mainstays of the playwright's work are given unnuanced treatment, its broad knockabout humor frequently wears thin. But in the hands of Daniel Sullivan, the most consistent of New York's regular Shakespeare in the Park directors, and a resourceful cast captained by the brilliantly matched clowns Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Hamish Linklater - each doing double-duty as the play's two sets of twins - this accelerated update is an ideal summer night's entertainment.

Gordon Cox, Variety: Take a good look at Hamish Linklater and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, the clown princes who are making a dazzling spectacle of themselves in Daniel Sullivan's madcap version of "The Comedy of Errors" at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Go on - watch them run into themselves coming and going in their dual roles of two matched pairs of masters and servants. Listen to their flawless delivery of double entendres in Shakespearean blank verse. Now, wave goodbye, because who knows when we'll see these comic wunderkinder together on stage again, now that they've been welcomed into TV-sitcom land.

David Cote, Time Out NY: The Comedy of Errors is an elegant summer delight. The youthful cast includes adorable Emily Bergl and Heidi Schreck as Ephesian sisters caught between Antipholuses; de'Adre Aziza has a smoky turn as a sexy torch singer. Sullivan's jazzy production is set in a gangsters-and-molls 1940s, with swing-dance interludes burning up the stage between scenes. The biggest praise goes to lanky Linklater and gushing Ferguson. They are a study in tropic contrasts, Linklater all desert-dry ripostes and Ferguson a humid jungle of spastic grimaces and panicky smiles. No errors here; all's right for a night of big laughs.

Robert Kahn, NBC New York: Linklater and Ferguson performed together here most recently in 2010's repertory "The Merchant of Venice" and "The Winter's Tale," and their familiarity with the surroundings can only serve to ease the burden of their biggest challenge: here, the two step into four roles usually played by four different actors...With a no-holds barred commitment to physical comedy, the good-natured sitcom stars appearing at the Delacorte make "The Comedy of Errors" a sparkling and sure bet for a summer night.

Steve Parks, Newsday: The Public Theater's updated (1930s), relocated (Adirondacks) "Comedy of Errors" transforms the Bard's most economical play -- 1,800 lines in 90 minutes, no intermission -- into breathless farce with jazz-and-dance embellishments...But the sheer befuddled dexterity of Linklater ("The New Adventures of Old Christine") and Ferguson ("Modern Family") power director Daniel Sullivan's dual-piston engine that keeps the motor running at full comic throttle. Sullivan's optical trick in bringing the two sets of twins face to face delivers a satisfying payoff.

Matt Windman, AM New York: The first installment of this summer's Shakespeare in the Park season is not exactly ambitious: a slimmed-down, family-friendly version of "The Comedy of Errors," an early, relatively lightweight Shakespeare play marked mainly by physical slapstick built around a mistaken identity premise...But being short and sweet isn't necessarily a bad thing for free summertime entertainment. In fact, Daniel Sullivan's breezy 90-minute production is sure to appeal to children and adults that are less familiar or comfortable with Shakespeare. Ideally, any Shakespeare in the Park production should be so inclusive.

Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly: The Modern Family star is a hoot, making the most of all his behind-the-scenes scrambling to enter the stage far from the spot where he only just exited. Director Daniel Sullivan has cleverly set the action in the early 20th century, with Ephesus mobsters dressed in pinstriped suits shaking down foreigners from Syracuse...and he stretches out the scene changes with some period interludes of swing dancing that match the jazzy spirit of the show. This Comedy of Errors is like theatrical cotton candy, light as air and best enjoyed al fresco. B+

Scott Brown, Vulture: Sullivan presents the windy tale as vaudeville prop comedy, a solution as elegant as it is doggedly unserious. We're hooked on confectioner's sugar within minutes, and that's before you get a snootful of Hamish Linklater and Jesse Tyler Ferguson...Linklater, playing both pious, nervous, romantic Antipholus of Syracuse and caddish, sharp-lapeled Antipholus of Ephesus, once again proves himself one of our great comic stage actors...Ferguson takes his dour masochism to new heights as Dromio, the fool-me-once-beat-me-twice slave whose attempts to serve two (identical) masters reap him a harvest of cartoonish pain. Lemon-tart Emily Bergl (as the apoplectic, Adelaidesque Adriana) and off-Broadway goddess Heidi Schreck (as her tsking sister Luciana) keep up with the boys from upstate, step for step, and the triple-threat ensemble is among the strongest troupe yet assembled for Park duty.

Brendan Lemon, Financial Times: A whiff of mob violence wafts through the outdoor amphitheatre as this heavily truncated, enjoyable 90-minute evening unfolds...The twin Antipholuses, attended by their twin servants the Dromios, are rather anodyne in this telling. Their appealing, game interpreters - Hamish Linklater as the former, Jesse Tyler Ferguson as the latter - carry out some of the requisite slapstick...The clowning does not cut very deep. But none of the recent attempts to intensify the play's brutality have proved very resonant, so perhaps Sullivan and his designers were right to make few demands on Park patrons.

Jesse Oxfeld, New York Observer: And then there's The Comedy of Errors, which opened at the Delacorte last night as the first half of The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park series for this summer. It's the most fun, silly, enjoyable, accessible, engaging, all-around delightful Shakespeare production I've ever seen...A cynic, or a purist, might complain that casting two sitcom stars in four slapsticky roles guarantees a broad, hammy, pause-for-laughs evening; an honest observer would retort that the two have done several seasons of Shakespeare in the Park and here deliver impeccable performances, using all their comic expertise-in timing, delivery, physical business-in service of Mr. Sullivan's conception. Mr. Ferguson, in a vaudevillian bowler and oversized checkered suit that might have been borrowed from Bill Irwin's closet, is an eager and excellent clown; watching Mr. Linklater's amiability melt into fury is the night's pleasure.

Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News: Linklater ("The New Adventures of Old Christine") and Ferguson ("Modern Family") are regulars in the park productions and terrific clowns. Each makes it easy to know which twin is speaking at every moment. As Adriana, Antipholus of Ephesus' suspicious, gum-chewing wife, Emily Bergl pratfalls, tumbles and rails her way to a terrific turn. Heidi Schreck is humorous and adorable as her sister, Luciana, who thinks her brother-in-law is hot for her.

Roma Torre, NY1: When spaghetti lands on heads and nuns show up with guns, you're either in for a long night or a memorably funny one. It's clear where I stand. They don't speak the speech as much as talk the talk and in between - lots of laughter.

Robert Feldberg, NorthJersy.com: Ferguson, best known these days for "Modern Family," and Linklater, who gave a terrific performance in "Twelfth Night" several seasons back, are experienced hands at Shakespearean comedy, and get all their laughs without stepping out of character or hogging the spotlight.

Steven Suskin, Huffington Post: What makes this Comedy of Errors so right, and magnifies the fun two or threefold, is that Sullivan lets his two stars play their own brothers. Thus, the "twins" are truly identical, and the comedy of having one Dromio exit over there and immediately enter over here is magnified. (Mr. Ferguson is spending his summer vacation being pummeled by his master onstage while running an obstacle course offstage.) Linklater and Ferguson, thus, are playing two leading roles each. Hams that they are, they make the most of it. As does Sullivan. While those familiar with the play might grow nervous at the approach of the final scene -- in which both sets of twins need be onstage together -- it turns out that Sullivan has a simple and workable solution.

Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post: Here's the thing, though: Comedy may be hard, but it shouldn't look that way. Under the heavy-handed direction of Daniel Sullivan - more at ease in last year's "As You Like It" - the show is overeager to please. And so, instead of blooming into a joyful chaos, the farce tends to fizzle.

Michael Dale, BroadwayWorld: But despite the abundance of pratfalls and knockabout shtick, including a bit involving an exceedingly misplaced serving of spaghetti, the comic highlights come in their handling of Shakespeare's verbiage; particularly a saucy scene where they describe the cook's globe-like figure in geographic terms and a masterfully paced monologue for Linklater where he incredulously recaps the insanity of the day. Merry good fun and a snazzy time.

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus

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