The Comedy of Errors July 7, 2011

"The Comedy of Errors " kicks off 20th season of Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Lot

WHERE AND WHEN:
July 7 to July 23, 2011
Municipal Parking Lot at the corner of Ludlow and Broome Streets, Manhattan.
(Subways: F to Delancey Street, walk one block south.)
FREE
Thursdays - Saturdays at 8:00 PM
Audience info: www.shakespeareintheparkinglot.com or call 212-873-9050.

The Drilling Company will present "The Comedy of Errors" directed by Kathy Curtiss, July 7 to July 23 as the opening show of the 20th season of Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Lot, a summer New York institution performed free in a municipal parking lot at the corner of Ludlow and Broome Streets in Manhattan's Lower East Side.

Shakespeare in the Parking Lot typically presents intrepid, bare-boned and often gloriously ingenious adaptations of the classics. For example, last summer, Hamilton Clancy staged "Julius Caesar" as a battle for control of an urban school system, with women playing Brutus and Cassius.

The Drilling Company's production of "The Comedy of Errors" adapts Shakespeare's comedy of mischance and mistaken identity to a modern pizzeria in Little Italy. The rivalry of the houses of Syracuse and Ephesus is updated to a struggle between two prominent Italian restaurant families, one of whom--that of Aegion--long ago endured the loss of its patriarch's wife and one of his twin sons. The clans are--unknown to each other at first--both gathering in the old neighborhood they grew out of. (You know Ephesus Street, right? Just below Kenmare.) Possibilities for confusion are increased by the presence of two identical restaurant workers, both named Dromio, who were originally servants in Shakespeare's 1591 version and are now employees of the rival restaurants. The mischievous and disarming farce exploits the families' ordeal of loss and recovery with a dizzying series of maneuvers involving a jealous wife, her moralizing sister, somebody's befuddled mistress and a schoolteacher/motivational speaker/life coach who offers a religious cure for the neighborhood's madness. Ultimately, both clans are reunited with their family bonds renewed, stronger than ever for the tests of adversity and long separation.