Rife with slapstick humor and cheeky wordplay, Rice Theatre’s production of “The Comedy of Errors” took the stage at Hamman Hall, sending off a final round of performances to laughter and cheers Oct. 26. The shortest of Shakespeare’s comedies, the play features two sets of identical twins separated at birth whose paths cross in the port city Ephesus, resulting in mishap and havoc.

Theatre professor Christina Keefe, who directed the play, said she wanted to bring a Shakespearean play to Rice.

“We all thought that it was time to get Shakespeare back on our roster,” Keefe wrote in an email to the Thresher. “We went for ‘The Comedy of Errors’ because of the cast size allowing for more students and the zany quality of the plot.”

The final performance received a warm reception with 138 attendees, according to stage manager Cece Gonzalez.

“It was a really hilarious show, and the audience reaction was really strong, especially tonight on closing night,”  said Gonzalez, a Baker College sophomore. “ People really turned out with the laughs, the joy.” 

“Having an audience helps bring energy and life back to me as an actor,” said Jordi De Jong, who starred as Dromio of Ephesus, one of the two sets of twins. “Comedy lends itself naturally to laughter, and that’s just such a great way to exchange energy.”

Amanda Simpson, an audience member, said that she was impressed with how expressive the cast was in every exchange.

“There’s always something going on on everybody’s faces … Every beat there’s someone to laugh at and something to keep everything rolling forward,” Simpson, a McMurtry College senior, said. “It’s so understandable and accessible.” 

Julian Puerto, who played Antipholus of Syracuse, twin to Antipholus of Ephesus, said that the show brought people with different amounts of theater  experiences together.

“This was my first play,” Puerto, a junior at Hanszen College, said.  “There are a lot of people who have acted since they were very young. There are other people like me who’ve only done musicals. There are people here who it was their first time doing a show here, [like] Jadir [DaSilva, who played Antipholus of Ephesus] and did a great job,” 

De Jong said that it was also her first time performing at Rice, and she enjoyed working with the members of Rice Theatre.

“We had a lot of great direction from [Keefe] and a really good cast to work with,” De Jong said. ”Katie Murano as my twin [Dromio of Syracuse] was awesome, and we were able to match each other’s energy,” 

Puerto said that performing Shakespeare presented a challenge during preparation for him and required different methods of memorization. 

“There’s a specific way that the cadence works and that you have to prepare for it,” Puerto said.  “I used a pre-recorded version of the show that was done professionally to help me with memorizing, which was most of the challenge.”

De Jong said a lot of rehearsal also went into the fight scenes, which were coordinated by fight choreographer Kyle Clark. 

“Even though you might not think there’s that much that goes behind it, there was a lot of planning and practicing and making sure everything was safe,” De Jong said. “Kyle helped bring all the scenes that had a lot of physical contact to life and make sure we were very safe and comfortable the whole time.”

Gonzalez said that the universality of performing Shakespeare makes the play stand out. 

“We’re in Italy in the middle of the 20th century, but we could be anywhere,” Gonzalez said. “We could be on the moon, we could be cowboys in the Wild West, and people would get the story and would like it. It speaks to how much Shakespeare understands people and can make them laugh.”

“Shakespeare isn’t unique in itself because Shakespeare is so well known,” Puerto continued. “It’s the fact that we can bring Shakespeare to the Rice community, especially now where musicals or other modern plays might be more popular.”