The Bomb-itty of Errors
New Ambassadors Theatre, Spring 2003

Isn't it always like that? You wait your entire life for a rap version of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors (the one about the two sets of twins constantly mistaken for each other), and then two come along in the same week. You'll find our review of Da Boyz in the Fringe section. 

This fast-moving high-energy romp, a big hit at the Edinburgh Fringe last summer, is just as much fun now that it's finally come to London, and you miss it at your peril. Originally created by five theatre grad students in New York a few years ago, it is currently being performed by four guys who want it made clear that they are actors playing rappers, along with an onstage DJ. They compound the complexities of Shakespeare's farcical plot by playing all the roles themselves, with some incredibly quick backstage changes, so that you may have to check your programme to verify that there are only four of them.

The translation from Elizabethan (I) to  Elizabethan (II) idiom is remarkably smooth and clever. Shakespeare actually wrote this early play in a lot of highly rhythmic rhymed couplets, and the scholars among us will recognize many of them being recited to a hip-hop beat. Meanwhile, the updates are fully in the spirit of the original, so that rhymes like villain/chillin' and arrested/you-guessed-it flow just as smoothly and wittily as the others.

Indeed, this whole show, with its infectious high spirits and never-take-itself-too-seriously attitude, captures the Shakespearean farce essence more fully and authentically than some moribund productions by a company I could name, whose initials are RSC.

For example, for no particular reason except to compound the silliness, Shakespeare threw a mad doctor into the mix, and it makes just as much sense for him to be a Rastifarian herbalist as anything else, just as it's a good New York joke for the jeweller to be a Hasidic Jew and the constable to be a cop who's been watching too many TV cop shows.

Interpolated jokes abound, with backup singers likely to appear and disappear without notice, an interminable shaggy dog story that actually pays off with a great punchline, and a messenger who proves that white boys can't rap. If you look sharp, you'll even see Shakespeare dash across the stage in one of the chase sequences.

Charles Anthony Burks, Joe Hernandez-Kolski, Chris Edwards and Ranney work together so beautifully that they won an ensemble acting award in Edinburgh. But it is Edwards, tripling as the local Dromio, the macho cop and especially the airheaded and relentlessly perky Luciana, who is the audience favourite. His is as happy a comic performance as you are likely to see in London this year.

Do not let any doubts you may have as to whether you're young enough or hip enough or rap fan enough keep you from this total hoot of a show. It is non-stop fun, exactly the way Shakespeare wanted The Comedy of Errors to be, and everything the modernisers have done to it works. Any fuddy-duddy who doesn't see that is to be pitied.

Gerald Berkowitz

Here's what we said about it in Edinburgh, August 2002:

It sounds like a really bad idea - a rap version of Shakespeare. But in fact this visitor from Off-Broadway is witty, clever, entertaining and remarkably true to the spirit of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors (the one about two sets of identical twins who were separated as children and are now mistaken for each other). Four rappers and a DJ play all the roles, with some remarkable quick changes and hilarious characterisations, particularly the dumb blonde who quickly becomes the audience's favourite. Deviser-director Andy Goldberg follows Shakespeare's plot quite closely, sometimes line-for-line, while the translation into contemporary vernacular and rap rhythms (for those who care, essentially anapestic tetrameter in rhymed couplets - ain't I erudite?) is witty and sufficiently varied in rap styles to stay fresh throughout. There's plenty of visual comedy and some very tight ensemble playing, making this a Fringe high point.

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Review - The Bomb-itty of Errors - Ambassador's 2003