The Comedy of Errors: the classic minions steal the show

This appears to be the summer of minions. Not only are they scampering across multiplex screens, they can also be found at the High Park Amphitheatre. Mind you, the little guys in the park aren't yellow, don't wear goggles and overalls, and don't speak gibberish – rather, Shakespearean English.

Kevin, Bob and Stuart, meet Dromio of Ephesus and Dromio of Syracuse.

The Dromios, of course, are the identical-twin servants in The Comedy of Errors. And they're played with slapstick brio by actresses Jessica Greenberg and Naomi Wright in High Park's pleasing new production of the Shakespeare's ever-popular farce.

In this staging, set in 19th-century Venice by director Matjash Mrozewski, the Dromios look like Italian variations on Charlie Chaplin's Tramp. Costume designer Sean Mulcahy has kitted them out in lumpy brown suits and the kind of pointy fedora popularized by Chico Marx. But the pair are just as endearing as those big-screen minions, scurrying about to do their masters' bidding.

Their masters, also identical twins with identical names, are Antipholus of Ephesus (Kyle Golemba) and Antipholus of Syracuse (Dylan Trowbridge). Shakespeare, borrowing some plot devices from the Roman playwright Plautus, uses these two sets of doubles – each master-servant pair unknown to the other – for a virtuoso comedy of mistaken identity.

The boys from Syracuse (as Rodgers and Hart called them in their musical version) arrive in Ephesus, only to be taken for their Ephesian counterparts. Trowbridge's confused Antipholus is told he's married to Adriana (Allegra Fulton) – but his confusion turns to wonder and delight when he meets, and falls for, Adriana's sister Luciana (Dalal Badr). Wright's Dromio is not so happy, learning that he's supposed to be the love of a "spherical" kitchen wench named Nell.

Golemba's Ephesian Antipholus, meanwhile, finds himself unaccountably locked out of his house, arrested, accused of madness and subjected to an exorcism by the charlatan Pinch (Michael McManus, wielding one wicked aspergillum). Greenberg's clueless Dromio, defending his master, is deemed a lunatic as well.

I'm a bit clueless myself as to why Mrozewski chose to re-set the action in Venice. Maybe it's because the city, like the ancient Greek one of Ephesus, is a fabled place of enchantment. At any rate, it occasions scenes at a sidewalk café and in a gondola as well as some burlesque Italian accents (notably by McManus as Pinch) and an evocation of the Venice carnival. Mrozewski, a ballet choreographer and now an emerging director (emerging from York University's graduate directing program, that is), opens the show with a masquerade dance. In a nod at the play's forthcoming mix-up, the entire cast wears the same masked disguise, which looks a lot like Salieri's spooky get-up in Amadeus.

At least the concept doesn't get in the way of the play, which is more than can be said for this year's other Shakespeare in High Park offering, Julius Caesar. Instead, it fades into the background and allows this year's strong troupe of actors to delight us with their performances.

Trowbridge, a rather unlikable Mark Antony in Caesar, is here the complete opposite as the happily befuddled Antipholus of Syracuse. Golemba, as his irritable, humourless brother, shows that the two men may share the same face but not the same temperament.

Fulton's fiery Adriana and Badr, as a gentle Luciana who looks like she stepped out of a Renaissance Madonna painting, give the show more Italianate flavour than any prop gondola could do. Christopher Allen, meanwhile, might easily be moonlighting from the Kinky Boots chorus in his amusing drag role as a classy courtesan. And Allan Louis as Egeon, father to the Antipholus lads, gives a riveting delivery of the wildly absurd, separated-by-shipwreck monologue that sets up the play.

Wright and Greenberg, however, steal the show – as they are meant to do – in the roles of the Dromio twins. Whether farting eloquently or trying to dodge their masters' thrashings – usually delivered with rolled-up papers, as if they were bad puppies – these minions are an antic delight. In true fraternal spirit, neither actress outshines the other. Although it has to be said that Wright has the edge, if only because her Dromio gets to do that crudely funny description of Nell as a "globe" – an extended riff that, pace the politically correct, is not a fat joke so much as a spoof of geographical clichés.

The Comedy of Errors is the shortest, silliest and most accessible of Shakespeare's plays. (Even shorter here, cut to a brisk 90 minutes.) Do your children a favour: take them to the Minions movie, but let them see these classic minions, too.

The Comedy of Errors runs to Sept. 6 in repertory with Julius Caesar at High Park in Toronto.