By Melinda Miller

The second show of every Shakespeare in Delaware Park season often has a different quality to it. Mid-summer evenings feel more settled. The atmosphere is warmer and heavier – even as the darkness begins to creep in earlier as July melts into August. 

At Shakespeare Hill, there is an air of comfortable anticipation as people spread out their blankets in favorite spots or fine-tune placement of their canvas camp chairs, searching for any flattish points for comfort on the undeniable slope. This is a very pleasant place to be. 

Then, it gets even better. 

SDP has done a knock-out job with “The Comedy of Errors,” one of Shakespeare’s earliest and most farcical plays. It is onstage now, with performances every night except Mondays (weather permitting), through Aug. 18. 

And, unlike its season predecessor (the hefty “The Winter’s Tale”), this little gem wraps up in a quick two hours. It’s the shortest play Shakespeare ever wrote. As they say, leave ’em laughing and wanting more. 

There is a lot to laugh about here. The original Mediterranean locale has been repainted with a Swinging ’60s palette. The Pop Art florals and tie-dyed costumes, plus the “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” set, are spot-on, and oddly at home with the Elizabethan dialogue.

The playful plot hinges on the unexpected meeting of two sets of identical twins, separated years earlier in a shipwreck. Misunderstandings abound as loves are lost and found, and tragedies are averted while we, the audience, play our parts by accepting the unlikely abundance of mistaken identities. 

The opening scene hints at high drama, as Egeon, a merchant from Syracuse (Mike Garvey), finds himself threatened with execution for being found in the rival city of Ephesus, unless he can come up with a rich payment to buy his freedom. 

Egeon will be fine. Shakespeare just needs him here to summarize the premise of the play. Egeon explains that, years earlier, he and his family were on a ship that sank, separating him, a son and his son’s servant from his wife, and the twins of the two young boys. When the surviving boys reached adulthood, they left home, He has now come trying to find them.

The action quickly shifts to show that those very men – Antipholus and Dromio – are indeed in Ephesus, which also happens to be the home of their twins, also named Antipholus and Dromio, and – coincidentally – identically dressed! The twins pop in and out of one another’s lives, being mistaken for each other in escalating rounds of slapstick sock-it-to-me-ness until all is resolved.

The cast is uniformly strong, with Johnny Barden and Connor Graham as the Antipholuses and Kevin Craig and Kodi James as Dromios. Rick Lattimer steals several scenes as the wronged merchant Angelo, and Caitlin Baeumler Coleman brings the gravitas when turning the original script’s Duke into the Duchess of Ephesus. 

While the sets and costumes alone are worth the price of admission (yes, I know, it’s free), the highlight of this production is the sound design by Tom Maker and his crew. His special sauce – combining cartoon sound effects, Three Stooges knocks and maybe a little Benny Hill, plus a fun update on the old “walk this way” joke – seasons the comic action to a whole ’nother level. Even on opening night, the actors and crew hit every sound mark perfectly.

Director Lawrence Gregory Smith knew what he wanted from this show, and it delivers. “The Comedy of Errors” is a fun piece of “starter Shakespeare” – fast-paced and joke-filled, with an uncomplicated plot, a spherical kitchen wench and a happy ending. Is it worth an evening of your time? You bet your sweet bippy!

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Shakespeare in Delaware Park presents “The Comedy of Errors” on Shakespeare Hill, behind the Delaware Park Rose Garden, at 7 p.m. each night except Mondays through Aug. 18. Parking is available on neighboring streets and in the lot at the AKG Art Museum. Cancellations due to weather are generally announced by 6 p.m. on social media (Facebook, etc.) on the day of the show.

Bring your own seating; picnics and drinks are allowed. Attendance is free but donations are encouraged; performers “pass the hat” at intermission.