Monday, November 30, 2009

Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors

I recently attended Shakespeare's play The Comedy of Errors at Edgewood College. This was the third time that I have seen this particular play. The first two times were at the APT (American Players Theater) in Spring Green. The first time that I saw this play I was much younger. It was hard for me to understand what they were saying. The entire time I had to pay very close attention. It felt more like work than entertainment.
The second time that I saw this play was just last summer. My brother-in-law has a friend who is an aspiring actor. He was performing, so we decided to make the short trip and check it out. Since I already knew the story and knew what was going to happen, it was much easier to focus on the dialogue. I was able to catch a lot of things that I had missed the first time.
Now, let me back up. I said that I have now seen this play three times, so most of you are probably thinking that I'm kind of a "theater person". In fact, that is probably the very last way that I would ever describe myself. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the play and I have seen it three times, but it is also the only play that I have ever seen. So, when I heard that we were going to see it again I wasn't exactly jumping for joy. I even thought about asking if I could be excused from seeing this play since I had just attended it last summer. I decided to give it a chance though, especially since this one was supposed to be set in the North Woods of Wisconsin.
When we filed in to the theater and saw the set, I was glad that I decided to go. It looked like they really had fun with the play. Definitely a drastic change from the first two sets that I had seen, the cheese-heads, snowmobile suits and canoe gave it a silly modern touch that provided some entertainment for even those that didn't understand what they were saying most of the time. Although I think I still prefer the classic version, I would still give this one 7 cheese-heads out of ten.