The Comedy of Errors
According to an eyewitness account, ‘a comedy of errors (like to Plautus his Menaechmus) was played by the players’ during the Christmas revels at Gray’s Inn on 28 December 1594: this can only have been Shakespeare’s play, which is indeed based on *Plautus’ comedy Menaechmi, and it is unlikely that the lawyers and students would have hired actors to appear at a grand festive occasion with anything but a new, or at least current, play. Although this debt to classical farce has inclined some scholars to see the play as apprentice work from the very start of Shakespeare’s career, stylistic tests confirm a dating around 1594, with rare vocabulary placing it between The Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet and its heavy use of rhyme placing it early in the lyrical period initiated by Venus and Adonis.
Sources: The play’s chief plot, in which a man searching for his long-lost twin brother is repeatedly mistaken for him (with discomfiting consequences for the sought-for twin), derives, as recognized above, from Plautus’ Menaechmi. (This play was published in an English translation by William Warner in 1595, entered in the Stationers’ Register in summer 1594, but the hypothesis that Shakespeare may have had access to this version in manuscript is hardly necessary, since Plautus’ plays were already familiar to most Elizabethan grammar-school boys). Shakespeare complicates this plot by adding long-separated twin servants (the Dromios) for the twin masters (the Antipholi), drawing on another Plautus play, Amphitruo, which also provided the scene in which a wife shuts out her husband while unwittingly entertaining another in his place. Shakespeare, however, adds the un-Plautine frame narrative of Egeon and Emilia, derived from the Greek romance of Apollonius of Tyre (which also lies behind Shakespeare’s other play about *twins, Twelfth Night, and Pericles). He also changes the setting from Plautus’ Epidamnus to Ephesus, and the play abounds with allusions to St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, especially its strictures on marriage.
Text: The play was first printed in the Folio in 1623: inconsistencies in speech prefixes and theatrically superfluous information in some stage directions suggest that it was set from Shakespeare’s *foul papers. Certain stage directions, which state which of three ‘houses’ (the Phoenix, the Porcupine, or the Priory) characters are to enter from, indicate that the play may have been written with indoor performance (such as at Gray’s Inn) in mind: academic and court performances sometimes employed a conventional ‘arcade’ setting with three doors at the rear of the stage, labelled by signs. The play’s careful and logical division into five acts (which would have been marked by *Intervals in indoor performance) would support this view.
Synopsis: 1.1 Egeon, an old merchant, is under sentence of death for entering Ephesus, currently at war with his native Syracuse, unless he can raise a 1,000-mark ransom. Questioned by the Duke of Ephesus as to why he has entered this hostile territory, he recounts how years earlier his wife bore him identical twin sons, for whom they bought identical twin slaves born at the same time, but that in a shipwreck he and the younger son and servant were separated from his wife and the other two twins. At 18 his younger son, given the same name as his missing twin, set off with his servant in quest of their brothers: Egeon subsequently set off after them, and has arrived in Ephesus on his way home after five years’ fruitless search. Moved, the Duke allows Egeon the remainder of the day to raise the ransom.
1.2 Antipholus of Syracuse and his servant Dromio of Syracuse have arrived in Ephesus: Antipholus sends his servant to their lodging to lock up his money. Shortly afterwards Dromio of Ephesus arrives and, mistaking this Antipholus for his own master, calls him home to dinner. Antipholus of Syracuse, thinking this is his own Dromio having a joke, grows angry, asking anxiously after his money, and drives Dromio away with blows before setting off to check on his belongings.
2.1 Adriana laments the continuing absence of her husband Antipholus of Ephesus to her unmarried sister Luciana, and after Dromio of Ephesus brings the story of his beating and dismissal (and is sent back to make another attempt to bring Antipholus home) she says she would be willing to forgo the gold chain her husband has promised if only he would be faithful.
2.2 Antipholus of Syracuse, having found his money safe, meets his own Dromio and berates him for the incomprehensible invitation to dinner he in fact received from Dromio of Ephesus: after a squabble their comic banter is interrupted by the arrival of Adriana and Luciana. Adriana preaches Antipholus a sermon on marital fidelity, and she and Luciana take his and Dromio’s denials of their acquaintance as mere jests. Softening, she invites him home to dinner, instructing Dromio to deny all visitors: Antipholus, though he and Dromio begin to suspect that their names are known to these strangers by magic, accepts.
‘Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown’. Claudie Blakley’s Adriana importunes a bewildered Lenny Henry as Antipholus of Syracuse in Dominic Cooke’s 2012 National Theatre production of The Comedy of Errors.
3.1 Antipholus of Ephesus, together with Dromio of Ephesus and his guests Balthasar the merchant and Angelo, the goldsmith who has just completed the chain for Adriana, are locked out of his house. The enraged Antipholus decides they will all dine instead with the Courtesan, and he sends Angelo to fetch the chain so that he can give it in spite to the Courtesan.
3.2 Luciana urges Antipholus of Syracuse to maintain at least a show of marital concord with Adriana: when he responds by wooing her instead she leaves to find her sister. A horrified Dromio of Syracuse reports to his master that a fat kitchen-wench claims she is engaged to him, and after a spate of comic puns likening the wench’s body to the globe the two Syracusans resolve to flee from Ephesus. While Dromio seeks a ship, Antipholus is met by Angelo, who to his amazement gives him the chain.
4.1 Angelo has met another merchant, just arrested for debt, to whom he owes exactly the sum of money now owed to him by Antipholus for the chain. Antipholus of Ephesus now arrives, sending Dromio of Ephesus to buy a rope with which to chastise his household for locking them out, and berates Angelo for failing to deliver the chain. Convinced that he has already delivered it, Angelo has Antipholus arrested for debt. Dromio of Syracuse now arrives and tells Antipholus of Ephesus he has found a ship for their escape: infuriated, Antipholus sends Dromio back to Adriana to fetch money to redeem him from imprisonment.
4.2 Adriana is enraged to hear that her husband has apparently been wooing her sister: Dromio of Syracuse reports Antipholus’ arrest, and they give him the purse of money he requests.
4.3 Antipholus of Syracuse is musing on how many people he meets treat him with kindness and respect when Dromio of Syracuse, amazed to find him at liberty, gives him the money. About to leave for the harbour, they are accosted by the Courtesan, who, seeing the promised chain around Antipholus’ neck, asks for it, or, failing that, for the return of the diamond ring she gave him during dinner. Convinced she is a witch, Antipholus and Dromio flee: the Courtesan, convinced they are mad, decides that the only way to secure the return of her diamond is to tell Adriana her husband has lost his wits.
4.4 Antipholus of Ephesus, still under arrest, is beside himself with violent rage when Dromio of Ephesus brings not the money to redeem him but only a rope: this behaviour helps convince Adriana, arriving with the Courtesan, Luciana, and a schoolmaster-cum-exorcist called Dr Pinch, that Antipholus is insane. Pinch tries to exorcize him and is beaten for his pains: Antipholus asserts his sanity and rebukes Adriana for locking him out, to which she insists that he dined with her: as the dispute grows louder Antipholus attacks Adriana, and both he and Dromio have to be restrained with ropes. The two are carried off homewards, bound, with Pinch, while Adriana attempts to ascertain what has been happening from the arresting officer and the Courtesan: just then Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of Syracuse arrive, with swords, and the others flee, convinced that the two lunatics have escaped their captors.
5.1 Angelo and his creditor the merchant are just discussing Antipholus’ apparent treachery when Antipholus of Syracuse, still wearing the chain, arrives with Dromio of Syracuse: insisting that he has never denied having received the chain, Antipholus is about to duel with the vexed merchant when Adriana, Luciana, the Courtesan, and their party arrive to attempt to capture him. Antipholus and Dromio flee into a nearby priory for sanctuary, from which the Abbess appears, and asks Adriana about her husband’s apparent madness. The Abbess diagnoses that he has been driven mad by Adriana’s continual reproaches about his infidelity, and insists that she will nurse him back to health in the abbey: a furious Adriana demands the return of her husband to her own custody and, refused, threatens to appeal to the Duke. The Duke now arrives, bringing Egeon to the nearby place of execution. Adriana kneels before him, recounting her husband’s madness and escape to the Abbey, and implores the Duke to exert his authority over the Abbess so that her husband may be returned to her. When a messenger interrupts, reporting in horror that Antipholus and Dromio have got loose and are avenging themselves on Dr Pinch, he is disbelieved until Antipholus of Ephesus and Dromio of Ephesus arrive in person. Antipholus appeals to the Duke for justice against his wife, who he claims has locked him out of his house and conspired to have him falsely imprisoned as a madman, and against Angelo, who he claims has falsely demanded payment from him for an undelivered chain. The Duke, Angelo, the merchant, the Courtesan, Antipholus, and Dromio are trying in vain to make sense of all this contradictory testimony, and the Duke has just sent for the Abbess, when Egeon steps forward, saying he has seen someone he thinks will ransom him. When he speaks to Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus, however, both deny him, Antipholus assuring him, as the Duke confirms, that he has never seen either his father or Syracuse in his life. At this point, though, the Abbess arrives, bringing with her Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of Syracuse, to the astonishment of all beholders. Adriana and the Duke are trying to ascertain which is the real Antipholus, and the Syracusan Antipholus and Dromio are wondering why Egeon is here and in bonds, when the Abbess recognizes Egeon and declares that she is his long-lost wife Emilia. As the Duke at last understands that the two Antipholi and Dromios are the long-separated twins Egeon had spoken of, Emilia explains that soon after the shipwreck she was separated from the baby Antipholus of Ephesus and Dromio of Ephesus by Corinthian fishermen, who took them away from her, and subsequently became a nun in Ephesus: Antipholus of Ephesus confirms the Duke’s recollection that he only came to Ephesus from Corinth later on, in military service with the Duke’s uncle. The Antipholi and their various debtors and creditors untangle the events of the day, Antipholus of Syracuse assuring Luciana that he will resume his suit, now she knows he is not her brother-in-law. Antipholus of Ephesus, finally obtaining the ransom money he sent for, offers to pay it to redeem Egeon, but the Duke reprieves the old man without payment. The Courtesan gets her ring back from Antipholus of Ephesus, before the Abbess invites the entire cast to what she describes as a long-delayed christening party for her twin sons. The Dromios are the last to leave the stage: not knowing which is the elder, they go hand in hand rather than in order of precedence.
Artistic features: The play’s opening scene centres on the longest passage of sheer exposition in the canon, the hundred lines of narrative spoken by Egeon before he disappears from the play until the final reunions. Despite the tight, fast-moving structure of the intervening scenes, the play is notable for other solo performances too, which similarly go beyond the normal emotional range of farce: these include Adriana’s complaint, in couplets, of her husband’s neglect (2.1.86–114), Antipholus of Syracuse’s wooing speech, in quatrains, to Luciana (3.2.29–52), and Dromio of Ephesus’ lament, in prose, about the lifetime of beatings he has suffered from his master (4.4.30–40).
Critical history: The play has often been dismissed as a formulaic exercise in Plautine farce (even by *Hazlitt), although later writers, from Charles *Knight onwards, have been more willing to be moved by the romance materials with which Shakespeare frames his borrowings from Menaechmi, and by the extra depth they confer on the plot of mistaken identity. Harold Brooks drew attention to the play’s interest in authority, relating its discussion of marriage to The Taming of the Shrew, while his successors have pursued the play’s allusions to St Paul on the same topic, often reflecting at the same time on the play’s canny thematic juxtaposition of three phenomena which confound the notion of the single, self-determining individual, namely birth, marriage, and twinship.
Stage history: Apart from the 1594 performance at Gray’s Inn, only one other performance of The Comedy of Errors is recorded during Shakespeare’s lifetime, albeit a prestigious one, when the play was revived before James I’s court during the Christmas season of 1604. Since then a high proportion of the play’s stage history has been one of adaptation: it first reappeared, in 1723, in an unpublished version called Every Body Mistaken, succeeded in 1734 by a two-act abbreviation, similarly unpublished, called See If You Like It. During the 1741–2 season the original enjoyed five performances at Drury Lane, with Charles *Macklin as Dromio of Syracuse, and it was in this unlikely role that J. P. *Kemble chose to appear from 1808 onwards in his own elaboration of the cut version by Thomas *Hull, The Twins; or, Which is Which?, which had been in the repertory since 1762. Frederick *Reynolds produced a characteristic musical version in 1819, adorned with songs from other plays, and since then the play has continued to be shortened to a farce or extended to a musical at regular intervals. In the United States, where their style perfectly suited the emergence of vaudeville, the Dromios served as vehicles for the Placide (until 1877) and then the Robson brothers, and the play later became the basis for a long-running Broadway hit by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, The Boys from Syracuse (1938). In Britain notable productions featuring added music have included *Komisarjevsky’s eclectic romp of the same year, Julian Slade’s opera (televised in 1954, staged in 1956), and Trevor *Nunn’s café-cum-circus version for the RSC (1974), although others have found the play’s dramatization of a broken and uneasily restored family sufficiently compelling (and sufficiently funny) without such assistance, notably Tim Supple’s small-scale, modern-dress production for the RSC (1996). Lynne Parker’s lavish main-house production for the RSC in 2000 placed emphasis on large-scale pantomimic fun, directing a then-unknown David *Tennant as Antipholus of Syracuse in an audience-friendly production, while Nancy Meckler’s 2005 realization for the same company aimed to unsettle through the Alice in Wonderland-esque expressionism of its design and costuming, and through a menacing array of Ephesian low-life stalking the public spaces of the stage. Amir Nizar Zuabi’s 2012 production (RSC) was set in a mafia-controlled Eastern European seaport, with state-sponsored torture and the economics of human trafficking hanging like spectres over the tale of familial separation. The eventual reunion under the protection of the Abbess spoke concomitantly and powerfully on political asylum as a moral necessity.
Michael Dobson, rev. Will Sharpe
On the screen: Apart from a ten-minute silent film (1908) and the heavily transposed The Boys from Syracuse (1940), adaptations for television include a British film (1954) with Joan Plowright as Adriana, a West German production (1964), two British TV films of RSC stage productions (1964 and 1974), and the BBC TV production (1983). The 1974 musical version directed by Trevor Nunn, and with Dame Judi Dench as Adriana, has achieved wide circulation on video.
Anthony Davies