Tag Archives: Hartford Theatre

There Are No Errors In This Comedy

The Comedy of Errors

At The Hartford Stage
50 Church Street
Hartford, CT
Directed by Darko Tresnjak
Through February 12th
www.hartfordstage.org

Reviewed by Bobby Franklin

Louis Tucci, Paula Leggett Chase, Alexander Sovronsky
Photo Credit: T. Charles Erickson

Returning home after viewing the Saturday matinee performance of the Hartford Stage production of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors I wanted to immediately sit down and write my review. There was one problem however, I could not stop laughing long enough to focus on my keyboard.

Director Darko Tresnjak has taken one of the Bard’s earliest plays and set it in 1965 Greece while adding music and dance to it. From the opening when Paula Leggett Chase steps out and sings a sexy and sultry Never On A Sunday in the best tradition of Melina Mercouri, I knew this was going to be something very special.

Photo Credit: T. Charles Erickson

The set, which was designed by Darko, is breathtaking. Save your money on a ticket to Greece, you are there when you step into the theater. The colors are vibrant, with boats docked at the foot of the stage, the Phoenix and the Priory rising behind it and the Greek countryside as a backdrop is something to behold.
It is the Greece of Topkapi and Zorba.

Save your money on a ticket to Greece, you are there when you step into the theater.

But what would Greece be without music and dance? Drawing on original songs from the period and using onstage musicians playing on a bouzouki and an accordion for much of it, (some of the music is piped in and also great), the audience becomes a part of the experience. Throw in some moussaka and baklava for good measure.

I guarantee you will leave the theater with tears of laughter streaming from your face

Now top this off with Shakespeare’s madcap story about two sets of twins and the mixups that ensue along with an outstanding cast and you have one of the best plays on stage so far this season. Sprinkle some Marx Brothers flavored comedy on top and the laughter never stops. How often do you get to see a Shakespeare play with scuba divers, surfboards, beachballs, rubber chickens, and a human battering ram? All this while retaining the original language and story. And, all taking place within a 24 hour period.

Photo Credit: T. Charles Erickson

Trying to chose a particular moment or actor to praise is too difficult in such a fine production. Everyone is just wonderful and spot on. Seeing so many actors staying in synch while so many different and crazy things are occurring is marvelous. This production is fast paced, constantly funny, musically delightful, and filled with wonderful dance numbers. It is a joy to watch all of them perform. The lighting and choreography are up to the usual high standards of the Hartford.

This production is fast paced, constantly funny, musically delightful, and filled with wonderful dance numbers.

When someone asks me to pick a Shakespeare play for their first time experience, I don’t suggest The Comedy of Errors. It is funny but not with the depth of his later work. However, after seeing this production I can recommend it without any reservations. If you
have stayed away from Shakespeare because you thought he wrote in another language, or if you are a lifetime Bardologist, you owe it to yourself to make the trip to the Hartford Stage. If I lived closer I would see it again, and again.

Photo Credit: T. Charles Erickson

Darko Tresnjak and the Hartford Stage have never disappointed me with their Shakespeare productions. There are many excellent companies in New England performing these works, but The Hartford Stage ranks at the top.

After attending a performance I guarantee you will leave the theater with tears of laughter streaming from your face, the salt of the Mediterranean in your nose, a hunger for some moussaka, and an urge to cry out, “Zorba, teach me to dance!”

A Little More About The Comedy of Errors In Hartford

A Powerful Lesson

August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson

At The Hartford Stage
Through November 13, 2016

Reviewed By Edmond D. Smith

the-pian-lesson-pic1916 saw the start of what has come to be called The Great Migration, the movement of millions of Southern African Americans to the North in the hopes of finding better lives than the South was affording them. Playwright August Wilson sets his famed ten play The American Century Cycle, of which the Pulitzer Prize winning The Piano Lesson is the fifth, in 1936 Pittsburgh where a large migrant population had taken root. Like all the plays of The American Cycle The Piano Lesson, currently at Hartford’ elegant Stage Theater, addresses aspects of how this dislocation impacted the African American experience.

This is what theater is all about.

The play revolves around the return of Boy Willie Charles, who has spent the last three years in Mississippi, some of the time in jail and all the time scheming how to gather the money to buy farmland in Mississippi that his family had once worked as slaves. He drives back to Pittsburgh with his friend Lymon in a truck that’s on its last legs filled with watermelons that he intends to sell to accumulate funds to help pay for the land. The last part of his plan is to sell a family heirloom, a 137 year old piano engraved with images that relate his family’s history in America currently in his sister Berniece’s possession. He returns to the bosom of a family that is unimpressed with his plans; Berniece being adamant that he will not sell what she sees as the family legacy. The stage is then literally set for a battle of how best to reconcile yesterday and today in a way that makes tomorrow worthwhile.

Christina Acosta Robinson uses her slight, almost frail body to heighten the power of her inner resolve.

The Stage has gathered an exceptional ensemble of actors who through stories and song highlight those things that have held the African American community together in their struggle in America; religion and African spirituality among them. Clifton Duncan fully embodies both the charming and manipulative aspects of Boy Willie. Christina Acosta Robinson uses her slight, almost frail body to heighten the power of her inner resolve. Other standouts are Rosco Orman (who you may remember for playing Gordon Robinson for years on Sesame Street) as Uncle Doaker who brings an appropriate naturalness and reasonability to the role. Cleavant Derricks plays Doaker’s bombastic brother and nearly stops the show with his soulful, thunderous singing voice.

Clifton Duncan and Elise Taylor Photo Credit: T.Charles Erickson
Clifton Duncan and Elise Taylor
Photo Credit: T.Charles Erickson

This terrific cast is able to express themselves to full advantage thanks to Jade King Carrol’s subtle direction which synergistically uses story, acting talent, lighting and stage design to create something greater than its already highly impressive parts. The lives of migrant African Americans in all their humor, love and desperation are sensitively evoked.

In our continuing era of racial strife, The Piano Lesson does us all a service by stripping away stereotypes to reveal the humanity common in us all. August Wilson was (he sadly passed away in 2005) not only a master of the lyricism of words but also of the human condition and brilliantly found the dignity of his characters in their everyday struggles.

With their current production, The Stage Theater burnishes their reputation of presenting important, quality theater to Connecticut. This is what theater is all about.

Hartford Stage
50 Church Street, Hartford, CT 06103
Box Office: 860-527-5151
https://www.hartfordstage.org/piano-lesson