Critical Essay | Critical Review by D. J. R. Bruckner

Critical Review by D. J. R. Bruckner

SOURCE: Bruckner, D. J. R. “O Dromio, Dromio! Wherefore Art Thou Dromio?” New York Times, no. 52253 (26 September 2002): E7.

In the following review of the Aquila Theater Company's 2000 staging of The Comedy of Errors, originally published on July 14, 2000, Bruckner claims that Robert Richmond's adaptation not only updates the original text, but actually saves it.

Whatever would Shakespeare have done without shipwrecks? So many of his plots turn on them that when a character in any play asks where someone is, I half expect the reply to be, “Lost at sea.” Well, life was tough in the old days if you lived on an island, I suppose. It was tougher on theater audiences; since staging a sinking was not possible, people had to sit through long descriptions of storms, broken masts and screams in the wind. None is more tortuous than old Egeon's speech at the...
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