AI Chat Search Browse Media On This Day Map Quotations Timeline Research Free Datasets Remembered About Contact

Comedy of Errors: Fred Drag does Shakespeare!

Sun 26 Feb 2006 In: Performance

The Comedy of Errors has always held a special place in my heart, thanks to an old high school production of it I was peripherally involved in. As I've gotten a bit older, however, I have to say my fond memories of it have waned. I love a good farce, but this old thing really defies credibility with its story of a pair of identical twins being mistaken for each other for two hours. Thankfully, gay director Patrick Graham has chosen the perfect venue for this revival of one of Shakespeare's rarer-seen plays – namely the Auckland University's Outdoor Summer Shakespeare season. There's something about the outdoor summer evening atmosphere and setting that allows a director to really go to town with material like this, and go to town Graham has, crafting a version of the play that manages to be absurdist, energetic, innovative and rib-tickling. "It's a pretty broad, knockabout farce that I knew would appeal to an audience that wasn't necessarily Shakespearean scholars," he says. "I knew I could do something with it that made it accessible to a modern audience. Also, it's not a play that's done very frequently, and I like to play with old texts a bit. I wanted to choose a text that wasn't very familiar, so people didn't have certain expectations." It's safe to say no-one could have expected this. Graham's Comedy of Errors is Shakespeare by way of Kath   

Credit: Chris Banks

First published: Sunday, 26th February 2006 - 12:00pm

Rights Information

This page displays a version of a GayNZ.com article that was automatically harvested before the website closed. All of the formatting and images have been removed and some text content may not have been fully captured correctly. The article is provided here for personal research and review and does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of PrideNZ.com. If you have queries or concerns about this article please email us