Shipwrecks, Strangers, and Reunions
In THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, Shakespeare introduces some of his favorite plot devices: storms, shipwrecks, reunions, and more
“We were encounterd by a mighty rock; / Which being violently borne upon, / Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst.” With these words, Aegeon introduces the inciting incident of The Comedy of Errors — onstage at Lantern Theater Company now through June 16, 2024. The story of this wacky comedy about long-lost twins and mistaken identity begins not with humor, but with a family-fracturing storm at sea. Tempests and trips are recurring elements of Shakespeare plays; from the storm that gives The Tempest its name to the forest of Arden’s transformative power in As You Like It, Shakespeare returns again and again to the winds of nature and the wonder of an unknown land to break and remake families and turn the characters into someone new.
Shakespeare’s storms on the sea are almost always about tearing apart families before they can be put back together. The Comedy of Errors is set in motion by a storm and shipwreck that separated a family, including two sets of twins, on separate shores. Pericles features not one but two tempests; one washes the title character up in a new land where he meets his wife, and the other sunders his family for more than a decade before they can reunite. The inciting incident of Twelfth Night — another comedy about twins and mistaken identity — is the storm that wrecks Viola and Sebastian’s ship and washes them up on Illyria’s beach.
Two of these Shakespearean storms are different: The Tempest’s storm, under the control of Prospero (and therefore the only one that is not the result of fate or chance), reunites an already-broken family on a magical island. There is also a tempest in King Lear, though this one remains on land; as the aged king leaves his second daughter’s home, he is left exposed to a fierce storm, the thunder and wind mirroring the disorder in his mind. And this time, the broken family cannot be reunited in this life.
Lear’s escape into the wilderness is another element Shakespeare returns to — the trip into an unknown place, often nature, that fundamentally changes a character. While they don’t feature shipwrecks or storms, As You Like It and A Midsummer Night’s Dream do use this construction; Rosalind and Celia escape into the forest to make a new life as new people, while the lovers of Midsummer leave the enchanted forest different from when they entered it. And in the plays that do feature storms at sea, the shipwrecks inevitably bring their characters to a new place, where they are a “stranger in a strange land.”
Disguise is often an element of these trips to the unknown as well, turning the characters into strangers to themselves. Viola and Rosalind must disguise themselves as boys; Bottom is disguised as an ass (though this time it is against his will). In The Comedy of Errors, the Syracusan twins pretend to be from Ephesus to avoid the law banning Syracusans that, unbeknownst to them, has ensnared their father. In doing so, like their cousins-in-disguise throughout Shakespeare’s canon, they are brought both further away from themselves and toward each other. The many complications of the play derive from the decision to disguise themselves as natives to Ephesus, but it is this very decision that draws each twin into his missing sibling’s orbit, eventually reconnecting them — just as Viola, Rosalind, and even Bottom find complication that leads to connection through their disguises.
The Comedy of Errors combines all of these recurring themes in one play: the storm at sea and the shipwreck, the splintered families eventually made whole, and the need to leave the known world behind to make a place and an identity in a new one. The storm at sea separates the young family, but the sea also brings them joyfully back together again. Both halves of the family — those at home in Ephesus and those who are strangers to it — learn something about themselves and their relationships before they can reunite. And they all get to decide now who they want to be and how they want to live with everything they’ve learned and the families they’ve gained.
In all but The Tempest, these storms reflect the randomness of life, or fate, or the gods. There is something bigger directing the course of the protagonists’ lives, and they are not in control. It is up to them to determine how they respond to the cataclysm; those who respond with grit and ingenuity are rewarded. In The Comedy of Errors, all six victims of the shipwreck have to display quick thinking and determination before they can be reunited. The Syracusan twins and Aegeon set off to travel the world in search of their family, even visiting the fateful city where their presence is forbidden. The Ephesian twins must survive and thrive among strangers before they can make a respectable life. Aemelia, a woman alone in a hostile world, finds a way to ensure safety and a measure of authority. Without any one character’s dedication to making the best of a bad situation, the reunion would be impossible.
As one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, The Comedy of Errors is also one of the first to introduce themes that he would return to again and again throughout his career. Twins thought lost at sea recur in Twelfth Night; strangers arrive in strange lands in as As You Like It; families are sundered and then stitched back together in Pericles, The Tempest, and others. Hidden inside the high spirits of his zaniest comedy are the first introductions of the themes and tropes that would continue to fascinate Shakespeare across comedies, tragedies, and romances to come.
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Lantern Theater Company’s production of William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors is onstage May 16 through June 16, 2024, at St. Stephen’s Theater. Visit our website for tickets and information.
