The only Shakespeare play we saw at OSF this year (!), La Comedia was a much more interesting take on one of Shakespeare's classic "mistaken identity" plays, The Comedy of Errors, than I expected.
Done entirely bilingually, the play's linguistic confusion enhanced the storyline's "twins separated at birth" identity confusion in wonderfully entertaining ways. I mean, who conceives a plot line where each of two sets of twins shares the same name? Who would be so silly?
Anyway, in this setting, the twins were separated when their Mexican parents were flying from Canada to Mexico and had a crash landing in the southern U.S. One set of brothers (one from each twin pair) stayed in the U.S. and became English speakers, and one set was deported back to Mexico. The play begins as the Mexican duo is in the U.S., searching for their brothers. They find them, or rather, are found by people who (think they) know them (wife, friends), and much hilarity ensues.
The bilingual aspect worked well, too, as rather than translate every phrase pedantically, they enlisted the help of "la vecina" (the neighbor), who sat a few chairs away from us in the audience and would break in every so often to express her opinion about the proceedings, and in the process help explain what was happening to those whose language was not being spoken as much at the time.
A surprising treat! And Bill Rauch's last directing effort (along with Mother Road) of his tenure at OSF. Since this was closing weekend, this play's audience was full of OSF company members, including Bill, Christopher Liam Moore, Danforth Comins, William DeMeritt, and possibly others I wasn't recognizing. The woman sitting beside La Vecina looked rather familiar; I think it might have been Alejandra Escalante, who wasn't in the company this year. If it was her, she was pretty incognito, though.
https://www.osfashland.org/LaComediaOfErrors
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