Recurring beat patterns, DJ scratch tracks and boastful rhyming are not included in William Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors.” But the Bard would doubtlessly love “The Bomb-itty of Errors,” a rap adaptation of his shortest play.
Originally written by a team that calls itself The Q Brothers, “Bomb-itty” will be directed by Ruff Yeager and feature students in his Theatre Arts 127 class.
When two sets of identical twins, Antipholus and Dromio, get split up at birth, they find themselves wrapped in constant mistaken identity. Unaware of the existence of the other, one pair of Antipholus and one Dromio grow up wealthy in the town of Ephesus while the other are not as lucky in the town of Syracuse.
Yeager said the adaptation is sure to have the audience bursting with laughter.
“The whole play is rapped,” he said. “It is modern rhyme and it’s very funny. I don’t think it’s ever been done in San Diego.”
Audience members will sit on the stage around the action, arena style.
“Some of the show is constructed to be like a concert, so the audience gets involved,” Yeager said. “There is a definite relationship, a dialogue between the audience and the actors going on.”
One of the challenges of working on this production was working around student schedules, said Yeager.
“If we did the traditional nighttime rehearsals it left out students that have nighttime jobs,” he said. “So I thought what if we scheduled it like a class. After couple of months in we begin to add rehearsal times. We decide at a time that was convenient for everyone and it seemed to work quite well.”
Yeager said one of his hopes is that the students learn the dynamics of performance.
“It will have an ambulant, joyful and whimsical feel to it,” he said. “I hope that they can grab hold of that essence and play with it and have a really good time.”
“The Bomb-itty of Errors” will run Dec. 11-15 in Mayan Hall.