Reviewed by: The Comedy of Errors Jayme M. Yeo When spectators arrived at Nashville's Centennial Park in the summer of 2016 for the Nashville Shakespeare Festival's production of The Comedy of Errors, they were treated to an uncanny echo of circa 1960s downtown Nashville, reimagined on stage. This production of Errors placed the madcap comedy of the play—as well as its underlying pathos—firmly within the country-western music industry. Staging this play as a country-western musical was a bold choice for director Denice Hicks, given the mixed reception of musical adaptations in the latter half of the twentieth When spectators arrived at Nashville's Centennial Park in the summer of 2016 for the Nashville Shakespeare Festival's production of The Comedy of Errors, they were treated to an uncanny echo of circa 1960s downtown Nashville, reimagined on stage. This production of Errors placed the madcap comedy of the play—as well as its underlying pathos—firmly within the country-western music industry. Staging this play as a country-western musical was a bold choice for director Denice Hicks, given the mixed reception of musical adaptations in the latter half of the twentieth [End Page 350] century, including Trevor Nunn's 1976 RSC production of Errors. The local history that grounded the production paid lighthearted homage to the folksy twang of Nashville's music history while simultaneously drawing from the submerged currents of longing and lament that informed much of the music produced during that time. The result was a production that blended the two impulses of the play—towards both comedy and tragedy—by tempering, in director Denice Hicks's words in the playbill, "the conservativism of Nashville with the liberality of folk music." But perhaps even more surprising than this blend of comedy and tragedy was the commentary on women's history, on the struggle between domesticity and economic independence, that emerged through the staging. The set designed by Todd Seage and John Sevier and the costumes by June Kingsbury gave the production a visual coherence with country-western music via references to Music City itself. When Antipholus of Syracuse, attired in a tie-dyed t-shirt, pulled up to Nashvillian Ephesus in a Volkswagen van, audience members in the know recognized the nod to Bob Dylan, who arrived in Nashville in the '60s as a change-agent, forming a partnership with Johnny Cash that would lead to the development of country rock (although on stage, Antipholus S. quickly switched his hippie clothes for a cowboy hat and boots). This was the decade when songwriters could still make deals in the smoky honky-tonks that lined lower Broadway, some of which, including Tootsie's World-Famous Orchid Lounge, remain prominent features of Nashville's downtown today. The iconic purple exterior of the Orchid Lounge was reimagined on stage as Tiny's World-Famous Porpentine Tulip Lounge (fig. 3). Fig. 3. Set designed by Todd Seage and John Sevier, with the Porpentine stage left, in the Nashville Shakespeare Festival's 2016 production of The Comedy of Errors, directed by Denice Hicks. Photo by Rick Malkin, courtesy of the Nashville Shakespeare Festival. Click for larger view View full resolution Fig 3. Set designed by Todd Seage and John Sevier, with the Porpentine stage left, in the Nashville Shakespeare Festival's 2016 production of The Comedy of Errors, directed by Denice Hicks. Photo by Rick Malkin, courtesy of the Nashville Shakespeare Festival. [End Page 351] For this production, however, music took center stage as the major connection between the production and its environs. Productions of the play are frequently criticized for a kind of gratuitous slapstick that obscures the work's underlying darkness, and the staging for this production certainly included its fair share of physical comedy, including a Keystone-style chase at the end of act four. Rather than situating these gags within the overwrought realm of musical theater, however, the production occupied a register that was more perceptively reminiscent of the country-western musical variety shows that dominated the airwaves of the 1960s, including The Porter Wagoner Show, The Johnny Cash Show, and the Grand Ole Opry. This generic context—classic country and folk—supplied...