THEATER REVIEW -- Tom Titus

Are there any Shakespearean comedies that could not successfully be

condensed into a running time of less than an hour with all their salient

points intact?

Orange Coast College doesn’t seem to think so. Witness the OCC theatre

department’s 45-minute rendition of “The Comedy of Errors” in the

college’s Drama Lab Studio Theatre.

Purists may wince, but director Alex Golson and his large and

energetic cast have turned Cecil Pickett’s downsizing of Shakespeare’s

tale of mistaken identities and intercity warfare into a slam-bang farce

suitable for a segment of “Saturday Night Live.” And you’ll get your

money’s worth, since admission is free.

If you’re not certain which Antipholus is which, or which Dromio,

don’t despair. You’re probably in the majority. Just sit back and prepare

to laugh, because OCC’s “Comedy” is a slapstick riot akin to those old

Keystone Kops and Marx Brothers movies.

Suffice to say that the two masters (Sean Hesketh and Robert Oldfield)

are twins separated soon after birth, as were their servants (Travis

Woods and Derek Wiley), and they wound up on different shores -- one pair

on Syracusa, the other on Ephesus -- where the citizenry of the two

regions are as cordial to one another as the Jets and the Sharks.

Narrator Frank Miyashiro attempts to keep the characters straightened

out, but he might as well be refereeing a Mike Tyson press conference.

The time frame for this version is “now and then,” which may explain

faith healer Josh Lash and his nurse, Angela Lopez, boogieing down to a

revised version of “Proud Mary.”

Others contributing to the general confusion are Ryan Gray as the

noblemen’s long-lost father, Laura Viramontes as their mother who embarks

on a radical career change, Nancy Troia as the wife of one Antipholus,

Anna V. Fox as her sister with designs on the other and Chanel

Panagiotopoulos as a comely courtesan.

Golson sets a frenetic pace, and the company manages to keep it,

occasionally slamming headlong into walls (which caused a youngster at

Sunday’s performance to cry out, “Are you all right?”). The show’s hectic

tempo (as well as the actors’ energy and endurance) proves to be its

strong point, as the audience abandons its efforts to keep the players

straight and elects to simply enjoy the pandemonium.

This condensed “Comedy of Errors” makes one wonder how many other

Shakespeare plays could be excised in this manner. After all, we do have

“The 15-minute Hamlet.”

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews

appear Thursdays and Saturdays.

FYI

* What: “The Comedy of Errors”

* Where: Orange Coast College Drama Lab Studio Theatre, 2501 Fairview

Road, Costa Mesa

* When: Closing performances 8 p.m. tonight through Saturday, 2 p.m.

Sunday

* Cost: Admission is free; donations are accepted

* Phone: (714) 432-5880