A The Evolution of Shakespeare’s Comedies
How THE COMEDY OF ERRORS lays the groundwork for Shakespeare’s later comedies
Onstage at Lantern Theater Company May 16 through June 16, 2024, The Comedy of Errors is among Shakespeare’s earliest plays and one of his most madcap comedies. The story of two sets of twins separated as babies and the hilarious mishaps that occur when they come back together again is unique in key ways. But this early play also prefigures many of the themes Shakespeare returned to again and again in his work.
While an exact chronology is impossible to know, Shakespeare began writing plays by 1590. Some scholars believe The Comedy of Errors was among the very first, and some think it was his first comedy. Others place it in 1594, the date of its first recorded performance at Gray’s Inn, a legal institution in London (some even believe it was written specifically for this occasion). Regardless of the exact order, however, this first batch of plays certainly includes four histories (Henry VI Parts I-III and Richard III), the tragedy Titus Andronicus, and three comedies: The Taming of the Shrew, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and The Comedy of Errors. By 1596, Shakespeare had written the early tragedy Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. By 1601, just five years later, Shakespeare had written all of his major comedies, culminating in Twelfth Night, which revisits the shipwrecked twins plot he first tackled in The Comedy of Errors, bringing his comedy career full circle.
The Comedy of Errors is one of 17 Shakespearean comedies, and it is the shortest play in his canon. It is also one of only two plays in which Shakespeare adheres to the classic unities: time, place, and action. (For more on these unities, watch for an upcoming Searchlight article on classical influences on Renaissance theater.) These unities — and the play’s relative brevity — give it a swift pace and streamlined plot unique among Shakespearean comedies. In another full-circle moment, the only Shakespeare play to adhere to these unities is his final play, The Tempest.
In addition to the unities, The Comedy of Errors also adheres to classical influence in its romantic climaxes — something that will become more complicated as his comedy career continues. In Shakespeare’s time, and for centuries before it, the designation of “comedy” did not automatically mean “funny.” Instead, it meant that the play ended with a wedding rather than death. Comedies are traditionally about bringing characters back into agreement with societal structures, and characters marrying is a major way those structures can be supported. Accordingly, Shakespeare’s comedies tend to end with at least one wedding. The Comedy of Errors is no exception, though the “weddings” are mostly about setting right couples that have gone wrong or setting new couples on course. Of his earliest comedies, this is the one with the most straightforward couplings. But as his career progresses, the comedies’ relationship with romance grows more complex, including roadblocks as thorny as gender confusion and faked death and resurrection. By the time he writes his final comedies, the so-called “problem plays” All’s Well that Ends Well and Measure for Measure, they are decidedly ambivalent on the subject, ending with weddings that are deeply troubling and at least partially unwanted.
But marriage, and the orderly societies it represents, isn’t the only theme that The Comedy of Errors sets up for the 13 Shakespeare comedies that followed. The frustration of a lover inexplicably turning toward another is central to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Disguising oneself to avoid punishment or danger — and the hijinks that ensue — reappears in As You Like It and Twelfth Night. Using the same source material in Plautus’s The Menaechmi to tell a more emotionally complicated story of twins lost and found in a shipwreck, Twelfth Night also has the most direct connection to The Comedy of Errors.
Twelfth Night retelling this tale with more grief at its center highlights another way that The Comedy of Errors launches the trajectory of Shakespeare’s comedies: even here, in this early slapstick comedy, tragedy is always just around the corner. The zany events of The Comedy of Errors are set up by a devastating shipwreck, and the shadow of a father’s pending execution hangs over every passing minute. At any moment, things could go from hilarious to heartbreaking (as they do in Romeo and Juliet, an early tragedy that reverses this trope by starting as a comedy). This holds true throughout his comedies, only growing more explicit — Hero’s life-threatening heartbreak in Much Ado About Nothing, Rosalind’s threatened death in As You Like It, and both Viola and Olivia’s palpable grief in Twelfth Night, for example.
Whether it is the way marriage reorders a society gone askew, how romantic signals can get hilariously crossed, or the ways in which laughter and grief are separated only by luck, The Comedy of Errors is an early testing site for themes and structure that Shakespeare revisits, reworks, and hones over the rest of his career. In this, one of his first and most rambunctious comedies, Shakespeare is sowing seeds that will sprout and bloom over the course of more than a dozen plays.
More great reading: See other recent articles and interviews on the Lantern Searchlight blog
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.
