The Comedy of Errors
In a small, isolated town, entertainment options in the early 2000s weren’t pressing against you and fighting for your attention. You instead had to seek things out and make your own fun. This is one of the reasons why the local theater program was popular at the time, and people often filled the house for plays – even old Shakespeare works could draw a full crowd. The stage represented something different from the movie theater or another run to the video store, a more visceral and unusual kind of entertainment that even non-theater folk enjoyed in small doses.
From the point of view of gaining fame, local theater is more or less useless, but for having fun doing plays and serving a community who appreciates the entertainment it’s nearly perfect. It does also make you a somewhat better actor, at least if you’re paying attention and have the intent to improve. John Patrick Rice who directed the play had done plenty of stage acting himself, bringing a lot of practical experience that he never boasted about, though you could sometimes extract a story if you found him in the right moment. He had developed a soft spot for Shakespeare early in his own training and often sought to weave this into his theater program. John made the choice to enlist Joe Pachak, a friendly and locally respected Utah artist who designed the set on a low budget. All in all there was a surprising amount of expertise involved in telling this story.
The premise of The Comedy of Errors is mistaken identity. A separated pair of twins end up in confusing scenarios when one of them visits the town of the other as an adult. Playing the traveling twin, I was lucky to have scenes with many of the other characters, which meant working directly with a variety of actors. This was my first play in America, and people were so welcoming, so curious and quick to integrate me into the cast, which all helped make it a special time in my life.
A lot of my dialogue was exchanged with two particular characters. First a servant played by Mike Winegar, and secondly the wife of my twin who was thoroughly confused and angry about the sudden change in her husband’s behavior. Kandi S. Correll and Cassandra Douglas took turns playing that role, Kandi being a mainstay at the theater for some time who easily developed acting chemistry with me. Cassandra offered her help outside the theater, which is one of those gestures that come from tightly knit groups anywhere in the world. People are often good, and local theater groups is one of the places I’ve seen this manifested with a lot of evidence.
The show did well, and as was true with most stage productions it quickly faded into the past.
Photography was not something everyone had constant access to at the time, so records from then are often sparse because someone had to make an advance decision to capture moments. Fortunately I’d picked up a dirt cheap digital camera around this time, and for a few days I brought it with me to rehearsal without any formal idea of documenting anything. The result was a few shots here and there, thinking it would be novel to have a couple of pictures.