You can’t accuse the cast of “The Comedy of Errors” of holding back. Everybody on the Delacorte stage, where this new Shakespeare in the Park production opened last night, exerts themselves mightily, trying to be zany.
And since “everybody” includes top-notch comedians like Jesse Tyler Ferguson (“Modern Family”) and Hamish Linklater (Broadway’s “Seminar”), we’re talking frantic chases and pratfalls, mock fights and the occasional head covered with spaghetti.
Here’s the thing, though: Comedy may be hard, but it shouldn’t look that way. Under the heavy-handed direction of Daniel Sullivan — more at ease in last year’s “As You Like It” — the show is overeager to please. And so, instead of blooming into a joyful chaos, the farce tends to fizzle.
Setting the play in 1940s New York was a good idea. After all, some of the main characters are from Syracuse, and making it the one from upstate rather than the one from Greece was a natural move.
The production looks terrific, too. During scene changes, the local guys and dolls, decked out in ToniLeslie James’ bright period costumes, swing to boogie-woogie, acrobatically choreographed by Mimi Lieber.
It’s also fun to see the Duke (Skipp Sudduth) as a kingpin who sounds like a B-list godfather and whose entourage wields tommy-guns.
The far-fetched plot — trimmed to a zippy 90 minutes — revolves around two sets of identical twins. Four actors usually handle those roles, but here Ferguson plays both Dromios, servants to Linklater’s Antipholuses. Yes, the pairs have the same names. They also dress alike, even though they were separated as infants and raised in different cities. (Just go with it.)
Naturally, this makes for madcap misunderstandings, what with Antipholus of Ephesus married to the volatile Adriana (Emily Bergl) and Antipholus of Syracuse longing for her sister, the bookish Luciana (downtown fave Heidi Schreck).
Yet instead of mining the material’s comic gold, the actors often go gratuitously broad, especially the usually reliable De’Adre Aziza (“Passing Strange”), whose courtesan is more vulgar than sexy.
The show is at its best when the actors find the humor within their roles. Schreck turns out to be a convincing Shakespearian, and Robert Creighton is hilarious as a timid goldsmith whose voice rises into a squeal when stressed.
As for the leads, Linklater and Ferguson are best when they just ride the dialogue, as in the scene where they compare a large woman to a globe and wonder where the countries would be. This sly, deceptively easygoing chemistry works wonders — and nobody’s breaking a sweat.