Comedy of Errors is yet another Shakespeare play showcased this year, though, unlike Brandeis Theater Company's production of As You Like It last month, this one is the effort of undergraduate theater group Hold Thy Peace. The plot is classically Shakespearean in the sense that it has fueled most of the plots of modern day comedies: a set of twins separated at birth, several cases of mistaken identity, violence, prostitution, cross-dressing. Well, maybe some elements are a bit more risqué than those in an episode of Friends, but still, there are plenty of connections to be made. The play began in the pit, the actors inches from the groundlings, and opened promisingly with an unusual prop accompanying the first extended monologue: a PowerPoint presentation. The trick was an amusing crowd-pleaser; the slides coincided seamlessly with the monologues, which reinforced the conflicts in the play without any additional guesswork. Then, the stage was unveiled, presenting an impressive set with elements of modernity and antiquity in the form of a series of graffiti-adorned black doors and a realistic cobblestone flooring.

The production went forward with the kind of cleverness it began with, though most of the group's hit-or-miss efforts fell into the latter category. Alex d'Anjou '08 managed to make his Antipholus of Syracuse a rather violent and frightening figure in what is an otherwise lighthearted and humorous play. His run-ins with Dromio of Ephesus, whom he mistook for his servant Dromio of Syracuse, turned into long and abusive encounters, possibly attempting to provide a slapstick element to the scene but instead creating a daunting series of blows and kicks. Phoebe Roberts '09, on the other hand, the unfortunate recipient of the gratuitous and undeserved violence, played her character with finesse, performing with conviction instead of pleading with the audience to understand her. Her twin, Dromio, played by Frances Kimpel '10, was equally impressive, using her body to smooth over whatever conceivable difficulties the audience might have encountered through the Shakespeared text. Dave Hinterman's '08 performances of Aegeon, Balthazar and Doctor Pinch were varied and entertaining and had little to do with the changing of costumes. The modern flairs he injected into his character, such as the Southern twang and the hysteria he infused into his rendition of the friar, was a refined kind of funny. Also, Marissa Linzi '11, while making her debut in the arena of college theater, packed a punch in her portrayal of Adriana, the perpetually begrudged wife of Antipholus of Ephesus, using her petite stature as a brilliant comic device and delivering a monologue at a hyper-speed that would put any fast-talker to shame. Another highlight was Luce, the bearded wife of Dromio, played by David Pepose '08, who took advantage of the few minutes he was on stage, supporting the notion that an obvious man in a dress is always funny.

Overall, the individual performances were enjoyable-for the most part, it was not the actors who committed the majority of the true errors in Comedy of Errors. The production used a heap of hints and gags to make the comedy more apparent, but most of them were unnecessary and came off as almost condescending. To highlight soliloquies, spotlights were employed. To make a punchline clear, a drumbeat and a wink were thrown in. To take a stab at foregrounding medium the way Shakespeare does best ("All the world's a stage," anyone?), additional lines were inserted with responses like, "Oh, maybe she read it in the program."

To be fair, though, HTP may have overexerted its efforts in displaying the comedic aspects of Comedy of Errors because, an often overlooked and undervalued theater group performing a comedy, especially a Shakespearean comedy, always has the potential to seem incomprehensible and illicit some serious question marks. That's the lingering hazard of attempting to put on a Shakespearean comedy: Who will actually laugh? In short, sophistication could have helped, but then again, as director Josh Sheena '08 offers in his director's note, "Maybe it's just a silly show about twins."

Yeah, that's probably it.