CHICAGO—After 37 years as artistic director of the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Barbara Gaines has directed all of Shakespeare’s 28 plays. She is now retiring, but her last production is not one of the Bard’s tragedies or histories, but a laugh-out-loud farce.
In her good-bye production, Gaines is revisiting “The Comedy of Errors,” which she directed 15 years ago.  This time, though, she has added even more mischief to Shakespeare’s late-16th-century comedy.  She has revived it as a play within a play, adding a more modern frame to Shakespeare’s work.
Long-lost twins Dromio of Syracuse (Ross Lehman) and Dromio of Ephesus (Kevin Gudahl) in Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s production of Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors,” directed by Barbara Gaines. (Liz Lauren)
The plot in which twin brothers and their twin slaves, divided at birth, cause a series of confusions, mishaps, and mayhem remains the same.  But, this time, “The Comedy of Errors” has been enhanced with additional scenes that have been written by Second City’s artistic associate Ron West. It is placed on a 1940’s British movie set during World War II, as a troupe of actors try to make a film of Shakespeare’s comedy in order to provide comic relief for the troops….