Much of the charm of Jobsite Theater’s current production of The Comedy of Errors is the look – the costumes, and the characters, appear in day-glo colors straight out of the late 1960s’ “flower power” era. Jeremy Douglas’ incidental music flourishes invoke coffeehouse beatniks, punctuating the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare’s oft-rhyming verse.

The show itself moves like an overcaffeinated runaway train, a hybrid of the farce Noises Off! and Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.

Yet it’s Shakespeare all the way. The language and the plot remain unchanged. Two sets of identical twins, each unaware of the other’s existence, wind up in the City of Ephesus. Mistaken identities compound mistaken identities, there are misunderstandings and missed opportunities, the wrong people get jailed, absurdities and general wackiness pile up.

The company’s longtime costume designer (and member of the acting ensemble) is Katrina Stevenson, and she says that while the central idea came from director David M. Jenkins, the look and feel of this Comedy of Errors was truly a collaboration between the backstage creative team and the actors.

Stevenson is part of the nine-member cast. She plays Adriana, the hapless spouse of Antipholus of Ephesus, whose husband has begun to act suspiciously. Like he’s never laid eyes (or hands) on her.

“Half of this group, we’ve never worked with before,” she explains. “But they were young, eager, hungry coming in. So you had a group of people who were willing to start plain and just start throwing stuff out there.

“And as David started to work, you could feel it start to hit. Certain places started to show ‘Look, this is a groove.’ It feels natural, even in its absurdity. And so then it becomes finding those places that still feel janky and smooth it all out. And make it all work.”

From left: Nicholas Perez-Hoop, Jacqueline St. Pierre, Logan Franke, Stevenson.

 

From left: St. Pierre, Franke, Cody Farkas.

For the costume designs, she sourced pop art from the Beatles and the Monkees, the super-groovy era of miniskirts and Peter Max paintings. “There’s lot of really good inspiration from that time period,” Stevenson continues. “I found all of these movie posters and artwork with all of these bold, geometric shapes, and that’s what we started going with.

“And my job as the costume designer is really to tell that visual story, so that you know, immediately, who these characters are and what part of the world they exist in. Especially when you have actors playing multiple roles, and there are several of those in the show.”

Key members of the visual storytelling team are scenic designer/technical director Chris Giuffré, and lighting designer Jo Averill-Snell.

Stevenson herself joined the Jobsite family in its second season, 26 years ago, and has been involved with just about every production since.

“We’ve been working together so long,” Stevenson says, “that honestly I think he trusts me to take his initial idea – and this is true with Jeremy and a lot of designers – where David says here’s my inspiration, here’s my idea, what are you bringing to the table?

“And he totally trusts that. You know, asks artists to be artistic. And that’s what we do.”

Although Shakespeare can be interpreted many, many different ways, there can be roadblocks, even for the most astute scholar of the Bard.

“When something doesn’t work, you go back to the text,” says Stevenson. “Go back to Shakespeare’s text and go ‘What is he saying? What is he doing ?’ That’s why I love Shakespeare. Seventy-five percent of the work, as an actor, is done for you. He does it in the word choice, he does it in the syntax that he uses, whether it’s verse or prose. It is all there.

“So when you start getting lost, just go back to the text and dig back into it. And bring some insanity forward.”

The Comedy of Errors is onstage through Feb. 8, in the Straz Center’s Jaeb Theatre. For all showtimes and tickets, visit this link.