What's With the Gorilla Inside This Old Sellwood Church?

You're not crazy. "The Bomb-itty of Errors" is a wild add-rap-tation.

As you near the end of Post5 Theatre's haphazardly absurd production of The Bomb-itty of Errors, you might wonder if the August heat is starting to make you see things. So you should know that everyone else sees rapping-inept bike messenger (Anya Pearson) flailing on the ground beneath a gorilla and a giant Shakespeare head, too.

If you've ever complained about Shakespeare being confusing, you'll be in good company here, because in The Bomb-itty of Errors (a twist on The Comedy of Errors), confusion is a major plot point: Two identical sets of twins separated at birth find themselves in the same town, and naturally, chaos ensues in the form of wife-swapping and debts doled out to the wrong twin. But The Bomb-itty of Errors is an "add-rap-tation," so most of the lines are rapped along to retro hip-hop beats played by a DJ standing above the set's graffiti- and newspaper-covered walls.

In the sweat lodge that is Post5 Theatre, the four actors playing the 10 characters have to dance, perform multiple costume changes and wear low-crotch, acid-washed capris that look very hard to move in, all while rapping wordy lines. It is chaotic, to say the least, but director Sam Dinkowitz's production embraces the chaos with absurdist, slapstick humor, which gets progressively more absurd as the play goes on. From bubble-blowing sports nuns to Pearson's bike-messenger character to the blue-dreadlocked, Jamaican Dr. Pinch, the play keeps accumulating more strange and relatively insignificant characters.

Since they have no mics, the actors have to compete with the beat to be heard. This seems unfair since it's probably already hard to breath properly while rapping almost every line and sweating in a theater without air conditioning. So it can be difficult to understand what they are saying, which, of course, exacerbates the whole confusing thing. Still, fear of spending precious breath doesn't stop Melissa Whitney as one of the two Antipholuses from grinding on the front row, or Blake Stone from dropping it low while wearing heels, a purple faux fur coat and leopard leggings.

If you are a Shakespeare traditionalist, you'll find very little Shakespearean here beyond plot construction, word play and the occasional dick joke. Oh, and the depiction of the one Jewish character: He wears a mix of Hasidic clothing and an Adidas track suit; Whitney plays the character as T.-rex-armed and derpy, with a mock New York Jewish accent that sounds part caveman. It is uncomfortable to watch.

With as much chaos written into the play, Post5's production can feel overwhelmingly disordered. It is entertaining to watch the energetic performers and their ability to play off the crowd (Joel Patrick Durham is particularly capable). They just need to turn down the music a bit. And preferably the Jewish stereotyping, too.

See it: The Bomb-itty of Errors is at Post5 Theatre, 1666 SE Lambert St., 971-333-1758. 7:30 pm Friday-Sunday, through Sept. 17. $20.

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