The Hollywood Shakespeare Festival has had more success in rethinking other Shakespeare plays than it has this spring with the vaguely noirish The Comedy of Errors. The decision to costume the players in 1940s garb to a background of blues and jazz doesn't particularly add to or hurt the production, but the stark lighting too often only hides faces under broad-rimmed hats without adding atmosphere. This is bad because too many players seem incapable of projecting a voice or a physical presence.
It happens at the start as a visiting Egeon of Syracuse -- in danger of being killed in feuding Ephesus -- relates how his wife gave birth decades before to twins. To serve his sons, he purchased twin boys born to a poorer woman at about the same time, but soon Egeon's family was separated by an accident at sea. The son who survived with Egeon eventually went off, with servant, to search for his twin, and Egeon himself subsequently embarked on his own travels.
This set-up, delivered by and to experienced actors, is barely audible. And the decision, or necessity, of casting relatively inexperienced actresses in the minor male roles of merchants is a distraction without payoff. Things perk up considerably whenever the twins appear on stage in various pairs. Mathew Chapman (as Antipholus of Syracuse) and Odell A. Rivas as his servant, Dromio, and Scott Wells (Antipholus of Ephesus) and David J. Hernandez as his Dromio, inject energy and diction into the proceedings. And Shaun Marie Levin is a desperate Adrana who can't understand why her husband -- as well as the visiting Antipholus she believes to be her husband -- acts so strangely.
There are worthwhile technical contributions. The palette goes to black, gray, taupe and tan with one nice exception. The spare set consists of three doors, each floating in just enough frame to suggest an exterior wall. Center stage is the wooden home of Adriana and Antipholus of Ephesus; it rotates to show the interior surface of the door, letting us know we're inside the house. At left is the heavy door in marble block wall of an abbey. At right is the reddish door of a brick building; it's from here that the courtesan emerges wearing a slinky, cut-up-to-here black dress -- accessorized with a red purse. The same actress (Sharon Stern) plays both courtesan and abbess, so that just when the audience is getting used to the just-missed-it entrances and exits of twins, we have a new anticipation of comings and goings through Doors No. 1 and 3.
