'The Boys from Syracuse' is American Shakespeare
Theater Emory's production puts a New York spin on the classic Shakespeare adaptation
One of the jokes in Theater Emory’s upcoming production of The Boys from Syracuse is that Syracuse could refer to the historic city of Syracuse or present day Syracuse, New York. Director Donald McManus’s goal is to remind people of the ancient world while also drawing parallels to New York City in the 1930s. The show is set in the Greek city of Ephesus, a thriving business and cultural center with a wildly diverse population. People migrated there in search of opportunities they didn’t have elsewhere. Supposedly, Marc Antony and Cleopatra took refuge in Ephesus after Cleopatra’s sister was murdered. You don’t have to look very hard to see the similarities between the two cities.
Adapted from Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors, the musical follows identical twins with identical twin servants who are separated by a shipwreck and journey to Ephesus in search of their counterparts. Hilarity, as you would expect, ensues. The show is part of Emory’s year-long celebration of the Bard, inspired by the University’s hosting of The First Folio: The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare. The book in question is the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays. Published in 1623 — seven years after the playwright’s death — without the first folio, it’s likely such classics as Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, and The Tempest would be lost to time.
The Bard has never looked as suitable for apple pie and baseball as he does in Theater Emory’s production of Rodgers and Hart’s swing musical. McManus’s staging sees the first Shakespeare-inspired musical stripped down to the necessities and presented cabaret-style, with few props. The cast includes a mix of Atlanta professionals and Emory undergraduates. McManus has also amplified the show’s themes of acceptance and the harmful nature of ethnic intolerance in the hopes of heightening the show’s humor. Really, what could be more American than making the joke more significant in order to make the punchline stick?
The Boys from Syracuse. $6-$20. Opens 7:30 p.m. Thurs., Sept. 22. Runs through Oct. 1. 404-727-5050. Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, 1700 N. Decatur Road N.E., www. arts.emory.edu/about/institutions/schwartz-center.html.