Once again, Matt is spending the summer at the Utah Shakespearean Festival.  He’s playing Dromio of Ephesus in Comedy of Errors, which starts previews on Monday (the Festival has posted some photos; check out this one of the two Dromios, once again failing to see one another), and Ben Weatherstaff in the musical The Secret Garden.  Miri and I are planning to go see the opening of Comedy and to return later, when both shows are open, to spend more time in Cedar City.

Comedy has never been a particular favorite of mine, though it’s one of the first Shakespeare plays I remember seeing, at the Essex (MD) Community College’s summer Cockpit in Court.  I’m probably not alone in becoming impatient with drama, even Shakespeare, that hinges on a single piece of knowledge that the characters don’t know.  We know that there are two Dromios and two Antipholi, but they don’t!  Isn’t that a hoot?  Oh, and Antipholus of Ephesus keeps beating up his Dromio–even more hilarity!

The best Comedy of Errors I have seen was at the Stratford (ON) Shakespeare Festival.  It was cut by about a quarter, with a running time of an hour and a half, and it was on a double bill following a similarly abridged Titus Andronicus: Titus, intermission, Comedy. 

However, I’ve never seen Comedy at Utah; I’ve never seen Matt in this play at all; and I’m not sure I’ve seen Comedy since the one at Stratford in 1989, so I’m looking forward to this.