The Comedy of Errors

After women dressing up as men and totally fooling everyone around them, Shakespeare’s other hoary old dramatic chestnut is, of course, identical twins being mistook for one another. In TCoE, he has not one, but two sets of identical twins, who have been separated at birth – OK, really during childhood, but ‘birth’ sounds better. Moreover, each pair of twins has – because this happens all the time – been given the same name as the other twin. So, in the city of Ephesus, we have local worthy Antipholus and his servant, Dromio. Unbeknownst to the citizenry of Ephesus, a ship visiting from Syracuse has delivered into their midst Syracusian worthy Antipholus and his servant, Dromio. Elizabethan hilarity ensues. The concept of time as a trickster agent of chaos is present throughout the play, so I settled on a clock. Also, Antipholus of Ephesus has commissioned a gold chain for his wife (no symbolism there) that plays an important part in the plot. Having both a clock and a chain, I found the resulting photo to be so boring that only proofreader humour could lighten it up, proofreaders being, in my experience, jesters of the modern day. I also worked in a nod to a Fringe play – The Comedy of Eros – written by myself and Kari Macknight-Dearborn.