The Comedy of Errors

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1091936.html

I dimly remember the Rowan Atkinson sketch where he is a schoolmaster trying to beat respect for English literature into the heads of a host of invisible and improbably named schoolboys. One of the great lines is when he insists that there is only one joke in Shakespeare, and it is in A Comedy of Errors, when "Two people look like each other. Twice." Pause. "It's not that funny!"

Well, actually, it is that funny. It's a much shorter play than the histories I've read/listened to so far; it's a bit more original, in that Shakespeare has boiled together bits of Plautus (who was also pretty funny in his day) to produce a mock-classical, proto-pantomime slapstick piece.

Anyway, the play itself relies on show more the stable foundation of farce, where we the audience know what is going on but the characters don't; two visitors to Ephesus get mistaken for their long-lost twin brothers who are local residents, and hilarity ensues. The key to the mystery is held by their father, who appears only in the first scene and the last, to set the scene for us and then to help resolve matters. Shakespeare himself was the father of twins, born in 1585, though they were not identical, being a boy and a girl. Still, I imagine it gave him a certain inspiration as he wrote this play in the early to mid 1590s.

The key drama in the play is the story of the visiting Antipholus of Syracuse, who finds that though a complete stranger, Adriana, incomprehensibly claims him as her husband, he is much more attracted to her sister Luciana. (His twin, the local Antipholus of Ephesus, seems to be much more of a bastard; and their servants, the two Dromios, are basically clowns.) There are other bits of tension, mainly to do with arbitrary justice and summary execution, but that is the main plot. With the right people, it can work very well.

In the Arkangel version I've been listening to, David Tennant turns in yet another great performance as Antipholus of Syracuse, doing his English accent. The Ephesians are all Irish - Adriana and Luciana played by two of the Cusack sisters (Niamh and Sorcha), and a generally well-chosen run of accents populating the town - Pauline McLynn, for instance, is the Courtesan. Most gloriously, the sorcerous Dr Pinch is played with an Ulster accent, clearly intended to be reminiscent of Ian Paisley. It's almost worth listening to for his brief scenes alone.

Anyway, it's short but sweet, and reminds me that I'm listening to these plays not just because they are classics but because most of them are very good. show less

I may be biased because of previous experience with this play (I volunteered backstage at an outdoor Shakespeare festival for four years, and this was one of the productions I worked on), but this is a really fun romp. Mistaken identities are always a good source of comedy, and Shakespeare gives us a fast and furious story with all sorts of comings and goings and general mayhem, with the comings and goings in particular evoking thoughts of Frasier.

For those of you not familiar with the storyline, I would suggest reading the first act, because Egeon's speech pretty much sums up the backstory. From that you will deduce that the two sets of twins will inadvertently meet in Ephesus and hijinks will ensue. It's much easier to point you to show more that than to try to explain it. Also a lot of the humour from the rest of the play comes from watching it unfold for yourself.

Act 3, Scene 2 is probably my favourite part (although Act 3 Scene 1 is pretty funny as well), because it features the hilarity that is Dromio of Syracuse telling Antipholus of Syracuse of the horror that is Dromio of Ephesus' wife, and how he could find out countries in her various features ("Where stood Belgia? The Netherlands?" "Oh SIR! I did not look so low."). It could just have been the great delivery of the guy playing D. of S. in our production, but this part always got huge laughs and I think it's still pretty accessible to modern audiences. (That line about Scotland being in "the barrenness, hard in the palm of her hand", though? No matter how hard he tried, couldn't get a laugh out of it. The explanatory notes in my edition didn't have any hints either.)

Actually, the whole play is fairly easy to follow, especially with the explanatory notes for the more obscure puns and references. It's short, too -- you can probably breeze through it in a couple of hours. I'd recommend this if you're thinking of reading a Shakespeare play but are somewhat intimidated by the heavier tragedies and histories. Read it aloud for even more fun. show less

The Comedy of Errors (Arden Shakespeare)
The Comedy of Errors BBC teleproduction 1983

WHEN IS A FARCE NOT A FARCE

The answer to this question could be when it is written by Shakespeare. People who read and enjoy Shakespeare do so for many reasons, not the least of them are the language, the imagery and the poetry. There are also the wonderful stories the subtle plotting and the resolutions that always seem to make perfect sense of what has gone before. Shakespeare is read also for his his commentary on the human condition, his is a voice that can leap across 420 odd years of time and still make sense to many of his readers in the 21 century. The problems with this aspect is that many readers expect too much from him and worry about those show more aspects of life in Elizabethan times that are frankly abhorrent to many of us today. Because in my view the value of Shakespeare is also in his acute observations of Elizabethan life and his ability to write plays that were entertaining to the audience that watched them. They would have been able to relate to the events on the stage and recognise issues that impacted on their lives and those of the social spheres above or below them, but there are some aspects that make the modern viewer/reader uneasy, squirming perhaps in their seats. The Comedy of Errors can be one of those plays: slavery, marriage and mercantilism all seem to hold us back from laughing out loud at the farce of the mistaken identities that form the central structure of the play.

The play is set in the mercantile port of Ephesus at some period in classical history: Aegeon a merchant from Syracuse has been arrested and sentenced to death as a result of a trade war between the two city's. He tells a story of how he has landed in search of his identical twin sons and their twin slaves who he has not seen for a number of years as they were separated as a result of a shipwreck. Unbeknown to him one of the twins is a prosperous merchant in Ephesus and the other twin has just landed in search of his brother and family. Both are called Antipholus and both of the slaves are called Dromio and they are so alike that they cannot be told apart. The Syracusan Antipholus is mistaken for the Ephesusian Antipholus and the twin brothers cannot even tell the Dromio brothers apart. The brothers do not get to meet until the end of the story and so in the meantime confusion reigns with even Adriana the wife of Antipholus of Ephesus mistaking his twin for her husband. All the action takes place during one eventful day that is to end with the execution of the hapless Aegeon.

There is a long speech at the very start of the play where Aegon tells the story of his lost family, it is a kind of info-dump that sets the scene, but also hints at possible misfortunes or misadventures. The comedy gets going as soon as Dromio from Ephesus sees Antipholus from Syracuse and mistakes him for his master and urges him to return home to his mistress Adriana; who is impatiently waiting to eat lunch. Antipholus is more concerned with the result of an errand that he has sent his Dromio on involving a hefty sum of money. From this moment on Shakespeare keeps the two sets of twins apart with the result that no one seems to be making any sense, but it usually ends with one of the Dromios getting a beating. The stuff of a knockabout farce and when jewellery, sums of money, unpaid debts, a courtesan and a schoolmaster and conjuror become involved then the humour goes into some sort of overdrive. The Dromio twins have an uneasy relationship with their masters who value them for their wit and service, but do not suffer their foolishness gladly. The repartee between master and slave sparkles with wit and invention as each of the Antipholuses who are touchy at best become mad with rage at the confusion and their inability to understand what is going on. Complications follow on hard on the heels of each other until both sets of brothers find themselves under restraint for disturbing the peace. The misadventures are all to do with the mistaken identity, there are no conniving servants or malicious traders involved, no plots to relieve the brothers of their money, but Antipholus of Syracuse soon becomes convinced witchcraft is involved and Antipholus from Ephesus becomes paranoid.

Shakespeare ramps up the comedy as the play progresses, but there are deeper issues involved. Antipholus of Ephesus relationship with his wife Adriana comes under scrutiny, she is not just impatient for his lateness in returning for lunch but sees this incident as a reflection of the state of her marriage. This is not helped when after persuading the wrong Antipholus home to dinner she effectively locks her husband out in the street while her guest makes eyes at her sister Luciana. Adriana complains to Luciana that husbands have too much freedom:

"ADRIANA. Why should their liberty than ours be more?"

Luciana puts her straight in a speech which is of it's time:

"Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.
There's nothing situate under heaven's eye
But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky.
The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls,
Are their males' subjects, and at their controls.
Man, more divine, the master of all these,
Lord of the wide world and wild wat'ry seas,
Indu'd with intellectual sense and souls,
Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,
Are masters to their females, and their lords;
Then let your will attend on their accords.
ADRIANA. This servitude makes you to keep unwed.
LUCIANA. Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed."

The outrageous beatings suffered by the Dromio twins at the hands of masters and mistresses are stock in trade for Elizabethan comedy, but this feels overdone. The treatment of servants which in many instances were little more than slaves during the period were known to be harsh, but the Antipholus twins seem to want it both ways, in one instance they are encouraging their Dromios to be friendly and engage in witty conversation while in the next instance they become annoyed, which soon results in physical abuse. The Dromios are the the most impressionistic and sympathetic characters in the play and contrast with the more aloof and cold personalities of the Antipholus twins.

The city of Ephesus is a proto-capitalist credit dependent economy. Stability and credit worthiness are everything; as soon as a suspicion of indebtedness is cast then a victim is identified. Everyman has his price. The poor unfortunate Aegeon who is bound to be executed could buy off his execution if he could raise 100 ducats, but no one in the city deems him credit worthy. Antipholus of Ephesus is a product of the city his scheme to repair his relationship with Adriana is to have a gold chain made for her and he knows this will be accepted, but when this chain gets caught up in the confusion of the mistaken identities he is in trouble. Antipholus is almost reduced to apoplexy, he becomes incandescent with rage.

The Comedy of Errors is one of Shakespeares earliest plays, perhaps the first comedy that he wrote, probably dating from mid 1594, but could have been a couple of years earlier. It has remained a popular play although in the nineteenth century stripped down and rewritten as a farce imbued with sentimentality. The Boys from Syracuse is a 1940's musical based on the play, but there have been plenty of modern productions that have used much of the original text of the play to make a comedy with added depth. I watched the 1983 BBC production starring Michael Kitchen as the Antipholus twins and an excellent Roger Daltry as the Dromio twins. Directed by James Cellan Jones this production not only made me laugh out loud, but also enabled me to appreciate the structure of the play. This is a comedy first and foremost but it also has other things to say and it all bubbles up to a climax and then a denouement that works particularly well. This production is particularly strong in focusing on the troubled relationship between Antipholus and Adriana, but never loses the fun of the comedy: the witchcraft is treated as a bit of a sideshow but is ever present and the intervention of Doctor Pinch is impressive.

The Arden Shakespeare dates from 2017 and is edited by Kent Cartwright. As usual the background information and notes are extensive with all you need to know to enjoy the play. There is no shortage of information on the internet if you find yourself struggling with the introduction that can be a little over intellectualised. The text however is clear and the notes on the same page as the text work well. This play is superbly entertaining and Shakespeare packed much into what is his shortest play. I loved it and so 5 stars. show less

I read this in Wells and Taylor's Complete Works of Shakespeare, which happened to be what I have on my Kindle; usually I read my old college Riverside edition.

I haven't looked at the Comedy of Errors for a long time. Last weekend we went to see it at the Great River Shakespeare Festival. It was a very slapstick performance, more what I think of as Plautus than Shakespeare. It would interesting to compare Shakespeare's comedies based on their sources and see how this affects them.

Reading the play was a very different experience from seeing it, as always. It is easier to enjoy the language while reading. What did the Elizabethans get standing in the theatre? They were a much more oral culture and must have heard differently and in more show more detail.

A funny play, but not as laugh-out-loud funny on the page. show less

Shakespeare set this farce about identical twins in the ancient world. Early in the play, the father of one set of twins explains how the pairs were separated in a ship wreck. This background prepares the audience for scene after scene of mistaken identity as the Syracusan and Ephesian pairs move about Ephesus. I read along as I listened to the Arkangel audio production and laughed aloud at the characters’ confusion. It doesn’t pay to think too deeply about the plot. The Syracusan pair had been traveling for several years in search of their lost twins, so why didn’t it occur to them that their twins were living in Ephesus when all these strangers thought they were someone else?

Generally believed to be Shakespeare's first comedy, The Comedy of Errors was first performed at the London Inns of Court in 1594, and has been unfairly dismissed as a piece of knockabout farce from Shakespeare's apprentice years. The play's action is very funny, especially in performance. Shipwrecked many years before the start of the play, Egeon of Syracuse searches vainly for his lost wife, one of his twin sons and one of their twin servants. Landing in Ephesus he falls foul of an obscure law condemning him to death unless he pays an enormous fine within 24 hours. The clock starts ticking and the action of the play begins to unfold. Egeon is not aware that his son Antipholus of Syracuse and his servant Dromio have also landed in show more Ephesus, but even worse, it soon becomes clear to the audience that Ephesus is also the home of the lost twin and servant, Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus. So begins the comedy of errors, as the pairs of twins are repeatedly and hilariously mistaken for each other, much to the consternation of their friends, creditors and lovers. Yet the play is also shot through with more serious issues. The sentence of death hangs over the father from the very beginning of the play, strange things happen to time as the play progresses, and the space of trade and the marketplace are never far away. The laughter of mistaken identity also gives way to more profound questions of identity, as when Antipholus of Syracuse says of himself that "I to the world am like a drop of water/That in the ocean seeks another drop." The Comedy of Errors is a much neglected play which is only now achieving the critical and theatrical attention it deserves. --Jerry Brotton show less

Have you ever seen the 1988 movie Big Business? If you have then you know the general idea of this play’s premise. Two sets of twins are born in the same place on the same night. One set of twins is wealthy, the other is not. The twins are separated at birth and one brother from each set end up growing up together as servant and master. Just to add to the confusion, the twins from each pair have the same name.

The play is one big case of mistaken identity. Friends, lovers, foes, everyone is completely confused as they run into the brothers and mistake them for their twin. I think this would be an incredibly entertaining play for kids to see, especially if they’re new to Shakespeare’s work. It’s easy to follow and contains lots show more of big laughs.

In later plays the Bard uses cases of mistaken identity and sets of twins to aid a larger story. This play feels like an early draft of the greater work to come, but it lacks the depth of his other plays.

BOTTOM LINE: This is the shortest and shallowest of Shakespeare’s comedies. I have a feeling it would be really fun to see performed live, but it doesn’t work as well in the written form. show less