Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse

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In the Globe Theatre Company's production of Comedy of Errors, Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse were played by Vicenzo Nicoli.

About Vincenzo Nicoli

Vincenzo has appeared in productions for Hampstead Theatre, the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Theatre Royal, York and at the Chichester Festival. His TV work includes roles in Dalziel and Pascoe, The Vet and Eastenders.

Click on the numbered links to follow Vicenzo's journey as he creates and plays the characters of Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse in the Globe Theatre.

Vincenzo Nicoli - Introduction

The rehearsals take place in rehearsal rooms about 5 minutes walk from the Globe theatre itself. Each rehearsal room is very large and has an outline of the Globe stage marked out in tape on the floor. This helps the actors to prepare for working on the Globe stage. The actors will have very few rehearsals on the Globe stage before production week.

Each day your actor will receive his/her ‘call’ which is the time s/he is expected to report for rehearsal. During the rehearsal period, an actor’s day will vary considerably. Your actor may rehearse scenes, attend a class (voice and/or movement) or have a costume fitting with the wardrobe department. A typical day might begin at 10.00am and finish at 6.30pm – sometimes there are also evening calls.

During the rehearsal period (particularly at the beginning) your actor will research his/her character. To help the actors, the assistant director will find relevant books, pictures, etc. and bring these to rehearsal. Extracts from books and pictures are often stuck onto the rehearsal room walls. Actors will also experiment with using props in rehearsal; these will be rough versions of the final prop and will help the actors to build the prop into the scene. Similarly, some form of rehearsal costume will be worn e.g. long skirts for the women, this will help actors to get used to moving, sitting, etc. in their costume. In particular, actors will use the actual shoes they will wear in performance during rehearsal. This is to wear the shoes ‘in’, as they are made using Elizabethan techniques and most pairs have no specified ‘left’ and ‘right’ foot. Many actors also feel that wearing the correct shoes helps them to ‘get into’ character.

The companies have 5 weeks of rehearsal before the technical and dress rehearsals. Generally, the beginning of this period is spent improvising around the text and in development of character; towards the end of these 5 weeks, actors will rehearse scenes in detail and run parts of the play. The exact method of working in rehearsal is established and shaped by the director.

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Vincenzo Nicoli - Character Notes 1

These comments are the actor’s thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.

Vincenzo will play both Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse. The challenge, as he sees it, is to be able to establish that they are two different people without them seeming either too different or two much alike. The last thing he wants is for the audience to look at him and see one actor simply changing his costumes. He aims to define different qualities for each Antipholus, but for the two characters to be enough alike for other characters in the play to be able to mistake them for one another. As of now, he is still exploring ways of achieving that.

Vincenzo came into the production remembering the show as being simply very chaotic, extremely confusing, and lots of fun. Having begun rehearsals, he is realising that parts of it are also very dark. Before rehearsals began, Vincenzo chose not to make any decisions about his characters - he prefers to come into rehearsals with an open mind. Kathryn Hunter is also a director who likes to work in this way. Vincenzo finds it more exciting not to prepare as then he does not develop fixed ideas or preconceptions.

At the beginning of a rehearsal period Vincenzo is most concerned with telling the story of the play. It is very important that the story of the play is clear to the audience and the actors, especially when a play is as chaotic as The Comedy of Errors.

Kathryn Hunter has asked the company to work to tell the story of the play using sounds and images. Vincenzo is not interested in speaking the verse ‘beautifully’, for him it is more important that the play is alive –Shakespeare after all wrote the plays to be acted. As an actor Vincenzo tries to be as ‘brave’ as possible – to be prepared to fail – as, he feels, if he can dare to do that he will learn and find the best way to play each Antipholus.

At the moment the company are using improvisation to explore the play. One of the ways they did this was to take the opening scene of the play in which Egeon tells his story and in groups of 3 or 4 improvise that scene in different styles e.g. opera, mime etc.

The company are currently concentrating on developing a strong group dynamic and an understanding of the play as a whole. The play is set in Ephesus, which is in Turkey and the company are working to create their own version of Ephesus. It is important for them not to try to produce an accurate version of Ephesus as it exsits today, but as a company create an imaginary world for their characters to inhabit. This means that Vincenzo has not worked a great deal on his characters yet. This does not worry him as he feels it is important that this comes out of his work with the group and their exploration of the play as a whole. Sometimes during an improvisation Kathryn Hunter will ask one of the actors to improvise as his/her character – for example she might ask Vincenzo to imagine that he is Antipholus walking through the market place.

Vincenzo’s family is originally from Italy and he has found his background to be useful as it helps him to bring a ‘Mediterranean feel’ to the characters. Otherwise he is trying to approach them as neutrally as possible (as opposed to deciding on fixed character traits e.g. a limp, accent etc.) He is concentrating on the story and the text itself. Vincenzo doesn’t like to fix anything early on – he tries not to become too pedantic about an idea or approach.

Vincenzo is very drawn to the innocence and openness of Antipholus of Syracuse, just as he is attracted to the urbane qualities of Antipholus of Ephesus. In his character exploration he is also looking at ways to bring out the darker side of the story. The Comedy of Errors is far from being just a farce: it is also about what that situation would really do to a person. The search for a mother and a brother presents an incredibly serious issue.

Thinking of the long-term rehearsal process, Vincenzo sees his biggest challenge as taking risks with the story and ensuring he does not become lost in the text. One of his most vivid memories of his childhood is of his mother telling him lots of stories of her childhood in southern Italy. Consequently he grew up in a family with a very strong oral tradition – his mother would tell the stories in graphic detail – playing all the parts…men, women, animals etc.!

Sometimes Vincenzo feels that the written word can be a block and that his job as an actor is to bring these words to life…..a play is after all called a ‘play’ because it is a group of people playing at being, in order to tell a story.

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Vincenzo Nicoli - Activities

These activities are based on the notes above. They are suggestions only; please feel free to devise your own. Please select the activities which are relevant to your group. You can send students’ work and suggestions from any of these activities to GlobeLink and we will be delighted to forward them to Vincenzo.

The activities have been devised assuming the students know the story of the play.

Playing both Antipholus’

One of Vincenzo’s biggest challenges at this stage of rehearsals is to find ways of making Antipholus of Ephesus different from Antipholus of Syracuse. The audience should be able to recognise one from the other.

Can you suggest ways in which Vincenzo could do this? Send your ideas to Vincenzo.

Sounds and Images

Kathryn Hunter, the director, asked the company to tell the story of the play using sounds and images.

EITHER: Choose a scene or moment in the play and think about what sounds either Antipholus might hear. You could record them, or write them down and send them to Vincenzo. OR: Imagine you are Antipholus of Syracuse, draw a picture of the market place in Ephesus as it appears to you when you first arrive.

Working with the verse

At the moment Vincenzo is concentrating on finding the rhythm in the verse. He finds it useful to beat out the rhythm on a table top!

As a class or in small groups choose any of the Antipholus’ speeches and try this exercise for yourself. Concentrate particularly on the part of the speech you find most difficult.

What is said about the Antipholus’?

At the beginning of the rehearsal period actors read through the play and list:

a) everything that is said about his/her character
b) everything that character says about him/her self

Look at the characters of Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse and make these two lists. What do you find out about each character by doing this? Send your lists and observations to Vincenzo – it might help him to find a way to distinguish between each Antipholus.

Rehearsal Calls

Look at the copy of the call sheet for the first week of rehearsal. Work out what Vincenzo would be doing on each day.

Either write a day or days in the life of your actor OR choose one scene Vincenzo has worked on during the week and try out ways of playing it for yourselves.

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