The story is as old as the hills, much older than Shakespeare himself. Based on an old Plautus story line (that's Plautus, as in ancient Rome), Comedy has to do with a young gentleman, Antipholus, and his servant, Dromio, from Syracuse. The two happen to visit Ephesus, where the spitting images of both (with identical names) happen to reside. The wife of the Ephesus Antipholus serves dinner to the Syracuse Antipholus, who falls in love with the wife's sister, after which, understandably, all hell breaks loose. The resulting high jinks usually involve a lot of knockabout physical gags and broad comedic shtick until all is resolved in a final scene that is the epitome of plot contrivance.
Waxman's odd concept is a film noir take, with the cast arrayed in 1940s styles -- heavy suits and fedoras for the men, beaded dresses and gloves for the women (all nicely done by costume designer K. Blair Brown). The noir concept doesn't extend to the set design (a couple of generic doors and no more), but David Hernandez's shadowy lighting has a noirish, murky feel. The period suits have a certain panache, but it's hard to tell who's who. The fedoras are snazzy, but they block the actors' faces, with only their lower jaws visible in the stark, angled lighting. Worse, Waxman's staging fails to offer much storytelling clarity. Case in point: the Bard's famously boring opening scene, a long talkathon in which a visiting merchant, Egeon, who is under a death sentence, delivers a tale of familial woe. Waxman serves this up as a two-person scene in front of the red-velvet proscenium curtain. The dense 400-year-old text is difficult enough as it is; without clear staging, the burden falls entirely on the actor playing Egeon, who, while demonstrating rhetorical flourishes, gargles his speeches, with a vocal placement well back in his throat. The result is that the scene is rendered virtually unintelligible, even for aficionados.
The show also suffers from the decision to employ slapstick comedy à la the Three Stooges. Against the noir style of the rest of the show, the routines fall flat. The stylistic disparity extends to the Antipholi themselves. Matt Chapman as the Syracuse twin plays his role as a romantic leading man, but Scott Wells has to work hard as his burlesque-style Ephesus twin, mugging and grimacing to uneven effect. The same applies to the Dromios. Odell A. Rivas, a vocally gifted young actor who has slowly and steadily refined his classical acting skills in a string of area productions, offers some textual subtleties, while David Hernandez as Dromio of Ephesus is directed as an all-purpose stooge. This foursome usually carries the play, but here, despite good efforts from all, their hard work doesn't come to much. It's hard to get laughs when you're standing in the lighting for The Big Sleep.
Despite these errors, the production has virtues. For starters, it's not played as a comedy -- at least it's not all yuks all the time. The typical one-gear approach to Shakespeare has killed many a production. Tragedies are played with deadly seriousness and comedies with relentless silliness. But the plays themselves deny such generic thinking. Romeo and Juliet, for example, is really a romantic comedy until the funny guy is killed halfway through. Hamlet has, line for line, more jokes than any other Shakespearean play. And Twelfth Night is one of the cruelest.
This production manages to reveal the darker, dramatic elements in its text, notably the scenes with the women, especially Adriana, the heartsick wife of Antipholus of Ephesus. Shaun Marie Levin, a resourceful actress, plays this character as it ought to be played but hardly ever is -- not as flyweight comedy but as romantic melodrama. Adriana's fears of her husband's infidelity and her anger and confusion when her sister appears to be attracted to him are all clearly rendered. The same goes for the character of Adriana's sister, Luciana (Melanie Liebner), who is courted by the other Antipholus, whom she mistakes for her sister's husband. This situation is usually played as farce, with the boy chasing the girl and the girl rebuffing him. But here Waxman has Liebner play Luciana's desire for her sister's husband realistically, which lifts this scene from a generic comedic riff to something decidedly more interesting.
There's an interesting comment on feminine stereotypes by double-casting the slinky Courtesan with the stiff-backed Abbess (the droll Sharon Stern does fine work with both) and the use of women to play all the minor roles -- at one point, all three male characters onstage are played by women in suits, fedoras, and fake facial hair. These psychosexual embellishments may be intentional or completely coincidental, but the theatrical implications are interesting. Are these peculiarities worth the cost of the ticket? Maybe not. But some might find some intriguing ideas to ponder there.
