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Critical Survey of Shakespeare: Film Adaptations

The Comedy of Errors

by Joseph Rosenblum, H. Alan Pickrell

Type of plot: Comedy

Time of plot: First century BCE

Locale: Greece

First performed: ca. 1592–94; first published, 1623

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

Solinus, Duke of Ephesus

Aegeon, a merchant of Syracuse

Antipholus of Ephesus and

Antipholus of Syracuse, twin brothers, sons of Aegeon and Aemilia

Dromio of Ephesus and

Dromio of Syracuse, twin brothers, attendants of above twins

Aemilia, Aegeon’s wife

Adriana, wife to Antipholus of Ephesus

Luciana, Adriana’s sister

A Courtesan

THE STORY

According to the laws of the lands of Ephesus and Syracuse, it was forbidden for a native of one land to journey to the other; the penalty for the crime was execution or the ransom of a thousand marks. Aegeon, a merchant of Syracuse who had recently traveled to Ephesus, was to be put to death because he could not raise the thousand marks. When Solinus, Duke of Ephesus, heard Aegeon’s story, he gave the merchant one more day to raise the money.

It was a sad and strange tale Aegeon told. He had, many years earlier, journeyed to Epidamnum. Shortly after his wife joined him there she was delivered of identical twin boys. Strangely enough, at the same time and in the same house, another woman also bore identical twin boys. Because that woman and her husband were so poor that they could not provide for their children, they gave them to Aegeon and his wife Aemilia, to be attendants to their two sons. On the way home to Syracuse, Aegeon and his family were shipwrecked. Aemilia and the two children with her were rescued by one ship, Aegeon and the other two by a different ship, and Aegeon did not see his wife and those two children again. When he reached eighteen years of age, Antipholus, the son reared by his father in Syracuse, grew anxious to find his brother, so he and his attendant set out to find their twins. Aegeon had come to Ephesus to seek them.

Unknown to Aegeon, Antipholus and his attendant, Dromio, had just arrived in Ephesus. There a merchant of the city warned them to say that they came from somewhere other than Syracuse, lest they suffer the penalty already meted out to Aegeon. Antipholus, having sent Dromio to find lodging for them, was utterly bewildered when the servant returned and said that Antipholus’s wife waited dinner for him. What had happened was that the Dromio who returned to Antipholus was Dromio of Ephesus, servant and attendant to Antipholus of Ephesus. Antipholus of Syracuse had given his Dromio money to pay for lodging, and when he heard a tale of a wife about whom he knew nothing he thought his servant had tricked him and asked for the return of the money. Dromio of Ephesus had been given no money, however, and when he professed no knowledge of the sum Antipholus of Syracuse beat him soundly for dishonesty. Antipholus of Syracuse later heard that his money had been delivered to the inn.

A short time later, the wife and sister-in-law of Antipholus of Ephesus met Antipholus of Syracuse and, after berating him for refusing to come home to dinner, accused him of unfaithfulness with another woman. Not understanding a word of what Adriana said, Antipholus of Syracuse went to dinner in her home, where Dromio was assigned by her to guard the gate and allow no one to enter. Thus it was that Antipholus of Ephesus arrived at his home with his Dromio and was refused admittance. So incensed was he that he left his house and went to an inn. There he dined with a courtesan and gave her the gifts he had intended for his wife.

In the meantime, Antipholus of Syracuse, though almost believing that he must be the husband of Adriana, fell in love with her sister Luciana. When he told her of his love, she called him an unfaithful husband and begged him to remain true to his wife. Dromio of Syracuse was pursued by a kitchen maid whom he abhorred but who mistook him for the Dromio of Ephesus who loved her.

Even the townspeople and merchants were bewildered. A goldsmith delivered to Antipholus of Syracuse a chain meant for Antipholus of Ephesus and then tried to collect from the latter, who in turn stated that he had received no chain and accused the merchant of trying to rob him.

Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse decided to leave the seemingly mad town as soon as possible, and the servant was sent to book passage on the first ship leaving the city. Dromio of Syracuse brought back the news of the sailing to Antipholus of Ephesus, who by that time had been arrested for refusing to pay the merchant for the chain he had not received. Antipholus of Ephesus, believing the servant to be his own, sent Dromio of Syracuse to his house to get money for his bail. Before Dromio of Syracuse returned with the money, however, Dromio of Ephesus came to Antipholus of Ephesus, naturally without the desired money. Meanwhile Dromio of Syracuse took the money to Antipholus of Syracuse, who had not sent for money and could not understand what his servant was talking about. To make matters worse, the courtesan with whom Antipholus of Ephesus had dined had given him a ring. Now she approached the other Antipholus and demanded the ring. Knowing nothing about the ring, he angrily dismissed the woman, who decided to go to his house and tell his wife of his betrayal.

On his way to jail for the debt he did not owe, Antipholus of Ephesus met his wife. Wild with rage, he accused her of locking him out of his own house and of refusing him his own money for bail. She was so frightened that she asked the police first to make sure that he was securely bound and then to imprison him in their home so that she could care for him.

At the same time Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse were making their way toward the ship that would carry them away from this mad city. Antipholus was wearing the gold chain. The merchant, meeting them, demanded that Antipholus be arrested. To escape, Antipholus of Syracuse and his Dromio fled into an abbey. To the same abbey came Aegeon, the duke, and the executioners, for Aegeon had not raised the money for his ransom. Adriana and Luciana also appeared, demanding the release to them of Adriana’s husband and his servant. Adriana, seeing the two men take refuge in the convent, thought they were Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus. At that instant a servant ran in to tell Adriana that her husband and Dromio had escaped from the house and were even now on the way to the abbey. Adriana did not believe the servant, for she herself had seen her husband and Dromio enter the abbey. Then Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus appeared before the abbey. Aegeon thought he recognized the son and servant he had been seeking, but they denied any knowledge of him. The confusion increased until the abbess brought from the convent Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse, who instantly recognized Aegeon. Then all the mysteries were solved. Adriana was reunited with her husband, Antipholus of Ephesus, and his Dromio had the kitchen maid once more. Antipholus of Syracuse was free to make love to Luciana, and his Dromio too was freed. Still more surprising, the abbess turned out to be Aegeon’s wife, the mother of the Antipholus twins. So the happy family was together again. Lastly, Antipholus of Ephesus paid his father’s ransom and ended all the errors of that unhappy day.

—Joseph Rosenblum

CRITICAL EVALUATION

William Shakespeare was not always the master playwright that he became in his later life. When he first began writing plays, he did not have the mastery of plot, character, concept, and language for which he was to be universally praised. In 1592, he was a young playwright with a historical trilogy and a classical tragedy to his credit; he was just beginning to explore and perfect his craft. The Comedy of Errors is an early experiment with comedy, and his enthusiasm for the experiment is clear in his writing. Shakespeare followed the example of most playwrights of the Elizabethan era by adapting other plays and sources to make his dramas. This in no way detracts from his genius because what he adapted he made distinctively his own.

Most of The Comedy of Errors derives from Menaechmi (The Twins Menaechmi), by the classical Roman playwright Plautus, who lived from ca. 254 BCE to 184 BCE Act III, scene i of the play originates from another work by Plautus, Amphitruo (Amphitryon). Both of these plays concern mistaken identity, which Shakespeare adapted for the crux of his plot as well. Just as Shakespeare adapted Plautus, Plautus apparently drew from an unknown Greek playwright. It was said of Plautus that his special genius was for turning a Greek original into a typically Roman play with typically Roman characters. Similarly, Shakespeare, like Plautus, set the play in ancient Ephesus, and used some of Plautus’s situations, but Shakespeare’s characters are typically and recognizably of Shakespeare’s Elizabethan age.

Shakespeare changed the framework of the plot, making it much more romantic and accessible to popular tastes. In Shakespeare’s version, the twins’ father, Aegeon, is introduced in the midst of his search for his wife and other son, separated from him by shipwreck. This storyline, demonstrating husbandly and paternal devotion, was appealing to the audience. Shakespeare then created the servant twins (Dromios) to add to the fun of the mistaken identity plot. In so doing he doubled the amount of action. He also introduced Luciana, sister of the wife of Antipholus of Ephesus, and thus provided a love interest for Antipholus of Syracuse. Out of the Plautine cast of nine, Shakespeare retained six of the original characters and developed many more of his own.

In addition, Shakespeare changed the characters to fit the tastes of his audience. Plautus’s twins are extremely one-dimensional characters. Both are self-centered, callous young men whose only interest was in the gratification of their animal appetites. It is difficult to feel any sympathy or empathy for them. In Shakespeare’s play, however, the twins are simply callow youths whose characters are not yet completely formed. They are not amoral, as are Plautus’s twins. They are simply naïve.

The relationship between Shakespeare’s Antipholus of Ephesus and his wife was much more appealing to Elizabethan audiences than that relationship as depicted by Plautus would have been. Shakespeare’s Antipholus does not steal his wife’s jewelry and gowns to give to a courtesan. In fact, he dines with the courtesan and gives her his wife’s presents only out of revenge at being shut out of his house and being given the impression that his wife was entertaining another man. There is a moral dimension to Shakespeare’s play that is lacking in Plautus’s. Like Plautus’s, Shakespeare’s play is a farce, filled with fast-paced action and dialogue, peopled with eccentric characters, and developed by improbable, exaggerated situations. It was the most elementary of the comic arts—the comedy of situation, rather than the comedy of character or theme. Shakespeare’s later comedies would develop the more difficult styles.

Even in this elementary comedy, Shakespeare shows talent enough to draw some basic characterization and suggest polarities of characters. The younger twin from Syracuse is, stereotypically, more timid than his arrogant older brother. Luciana is gentler and shyer than her sister. The eccentrics, the courtesan and Doctor Pinch, are each separately and strikingly developed.

Shakespeare’s experiments with language and poetry betray his apprenticeship. There is a noticeable simplicity and repetition of diction. The play’s accomplishment and fluency augur what the mature Shakespeare would later produce. The poetic passages of wooing that he created for the Syracuse twin and Luciana anticipate Romeo and Juliet (1594–95). Dromio of Ephesus’s punning description of his twin’s wife, the slattern Nell, in geographic terms, is a masterpiece of comic overstatement, as is the bawdy, double entendre that enriches the scene in which Ephesus is denied access to his home and wife. All of these touches are strokes of genius and wit.

Shakespeare’s later romantic comedies are foreshadowed by the dignified characters of Aegeon and Aemilia: Their lifelong devotion and eventual reunion elevate the farce to a higher level of comedy. Their plot resolution not only incorporates the plot and subplots but also unites all the characters. This plot development anticipates the festive communion that is the goal of all of Shakespeare’s later romantic comedies.

Shakespeare probably set out to write the perfect Roman-style play. It observes two of Aristotle’s unities. It is set in one locale, and it takes place in the span of a day’s time. Shakespeare added subplots, however, to complement and complicate the main plot. Plautus would never have broken the third unity. Shakespeare also handles his exposition tritely (Solinus asks Aegeon what brought him to Ephesus), and as a result, the first act moves slowly. Once the playwright moves into the plot complications of Act II, the action and humor never slow down until the conclusion.

The characters are shallowly developed, the plot is improbable, and the comedy is developed primarily through situation, but The Comedy of Errors has proved to be a play that delights audiences. Shakespeare wrote more thought-provoking plays than this one, plays that were more sensitive and profound, and plays peopled with better-developed characters, but The Comedy of Errors remains a fun romp, written in excellent pentameter.

—H. Alan Pickrell

FILM ADAPTATIONS

1964 Clifford Williams/Peter DuGuid Production

The 1964 television broadcast of The Comedy of Errors starred Donald Sinden as Solinus, Duke of Ephesus; John Welsh as Aegeon, a merchant of Syracuse; Ian Richardson as Antipholus of Ephesus; Alec McCowen as Antipholus of Syracuse; Clifford Rose as Dromio of Ephesus, servant to Antipholus of Ephesus; and Barry MacGregor as Dromio of Syracuse, servant to Antipholus of Syracuse.

John Wyver, in his 2019 book Screening the Royal Shakespeare Company (46–48), reported that this production had been “mounted as a last-minute replacement after the postponement of King Lear with Paul Scofield,” saying it “focused as much on movement as on text,” “was played on three linked platforms,” and “was presented in costumes that combined rehearsal dress with elaborate baroque fantasies.” Calling the playing “fast and furious and funny,” Wyver noted that the production succeeded both with critics and with the public (46–47). Wyver himself particularly praised Ian Richardson and Alec McCowen and mentioned other already-prominent or up-and-coming actors (such as Diana Rigg as Adriana, Janet Suzman as Luciana, and Donald Sinden) in other roles. Wyver wrote that with “cameras in the side aisles, Duguid cross-shoots the deep and narrow staging effectively, also making telling use of close-ups,” reporting furthermore that “cuts to a camera that is mounted stage right on a higher level” help “especially to reveal the commedia dell’arte interludes between scenes.” He noted that “[f]requent laughter and occasional applause” from the live audience “underscore the stage’s expert deployment of the techniques of farce” (47).

Judi Dench and Roger Rees in the closely related 1978 television broadcast of The Comedy of Errors, which was also a direct adaption of the stage production.

CSSF_p0031_0001.jpg

Photo via Alamy. [Used under license.]

1976–77 Royal Shakespeare Company Production

This production, based on a stage version presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company, starred Brian Coburn as The Duke; Griffith Jones as Aegeon; Roger Rees as Antipholus of Syracuse; Mike Gwilym as Antipholus of Ephesus; Michael Williams as Dromio of Syracuse; Nickolas Grace as Dromio of Ephesus; Judi Dench as Adriana; and Francesca Annis as Luciana.

Herbert R. Coursen, in his 1996 book Shakespeare in Production: Whose History?, disliked this version’s “imposition of music on drama” (87), saying “things get shallowed-out to the premises of musical comedy, which seldom involves depth of characterization or overcomplexity of plot” (88). He thought that “the musical format exacerbates the problems inherent in any recorded stage production. It will be at least as trapped in its moment and its conventions as a film or television version, so that it is likely to become at least as much of a record of Zeitgeist for us as a production of the script” (88).

Assessing this production in his 2013 book Small-Screen Shakespeare (56–57), Peter Cochran claimed that “of all the domestically-viewable versions of any Shakespeare, Trevor Nunn’s Comedy of Errors is the most enjoyable” (56). He admired the way it was shot “from two angles” (that of the actors and the audience [56]); described the convincing Greek setting and characters; and commended the comic complexities, the never-tedious farce, and especially Robin Ellis as Doctor Pinch (57).

John Wyver, in 2019 in Screening the Royal Shakespeare Company (111–13), noted that this “Comedy of Errors is conventionally shot as a studio drama, with only occasional close-ups for particular emphasis.” He called the camera angles effective but noted that some handheld cameras did add further points of view, but he lamented the absence of an actual studio audience, although some “[d]imly lit, lower resolution images from the stalls of laughter and applause are cut in at appropriate moments” to supplement a lamentable laugh track that now sounds crudely inauthentic (111). Nonetheless, he felt that the “strong moral sense that drives the production is retained” (112).

1983–84 BBC Television Shakespeare Production

This version, directed by James Cellan Jones, starred Cyril Cusack as Aegeon; Charles Gray as Solinus, Duke of Ephesus; Michael Kitchen as the two Antipholus characters; Roger Daltrey as the two Dromios; Suzanne Bertish as Adriana; and Joanne Pearce as Luciana.

Henry Fenwick, in his discussion of “The Production” for the BBC booklet accompanying the broadcast of this play, wrote that director Cellan Jones called the theme of people mistaken for one another “terribly creepy and very, very dangerous” and noted his unusually serious approach to this play (19). Cellan Jones reported that he found Aegeus a tragic figure and explained that this is one reason that character appears throughout this production (19–20). He observed that the production’s comedia del arte elements helped influence the set and its huge map (20), which were also influenced by Italian Renaissance models (20). Fenwick discussed how the appearance of the town was created; how a sense of perspective was achieved; how Pompeii was used as a model for the set; and how various bright colors were employed (21–22). He said that the comedia del arte idea influenced the costumes; that some obscure jokes were cut; that both Shakespeare and this production emphasize the newcomer twin; and that both twins are educated by the play’s events. He wrote that this production contrasts the twins’ relations with their servants, with the visiting twin and his servant almost equals (25). He recounted the director’s familiarity with some of the actors (26–27) and mentioned his attempt to achieve a “balance between comedy and unease” (27).

In a rave review from 1984, Jeanne Addison Roberts declared that “The Comedy of Errors ranks with the very best BBC productions of the Shakespeare plays to date. The producers have combined lush, delightfully varied sets with splendid acting and have used deliberate theatricality and calculated artifice in ways that sustain the delicate balance in the play between Greek romance and Plautine farce.” She asserted that the “scenery throughout was beautiful,” with attractive Mediterranean settings as well as “Elizabethan costumes and interiors frequently verging on the fantastic, with elaborately ornate embroidery and intricate inlay work.”

According to Roberts, “A sense of spaciousness, mystery, and hidden possibilities, rarely achieved on the stage and even more rarely on tv, pervaded the whole and made more superficially credible the deliciously incredible events of the play.” She felt that the “aura of romance was greatly enhanced from the start by the superb performance of Cyril Cusack as Aegeon” but argued that “most striking of all was the success with which this production conveyed through stylization of performance and slight over-acting the sense that the action in progress was not real life.” Roberts thought that in “dealing with The Comedy of Errors television has certain clear advantages over the stage. If one actor plays both twins, credibility is enhanced without the loss of potential for confrontation entailed in stage doubling. This production,” she added, “also steered an admirable course between the tv perils of monotonous talking heads … and … misguided ‘realism.’” Roberts concluded that “thanks to the skill of the actors and the intelligence of the filming, every word was crystal clear; the delights of eye and ear were superbly harmonized. We owe Director James Cellan Jones and his company an enduring debt of gratitude” (4).

In a 1986 essay titled “Cooling the Comedy: Television as a Medium for Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors,” Robert E. Wood suggested that during much of this televised play “we enjoy the distance from the joke which the theater grants us and which comedy generally requires. But the camera also allows us to look through the eyes of the characters. In so doing, it provides us with another dimension of the joke: the characters are emotionally distant from each other, but operate at a proximity appropriate to social intimacy. We,” he continued, “are intellectually distanced from their entanglement by our awareness of the existence of the twins, while at the same time we view the confusion from the physical perspectives of the characters. In effect, we move within the joke, although the joke is not on us. But in the last act,” he concluded, “the joke is distinctly on us as we become aware that the pairs of twins we see before us result from a split-screen reproduction of the actors, a phenomenon that we always experience, at least in part, as a technical tour de force. These variations of perspective provide the classic comic mechanisms with the requisite element of surprise within a framework of familiarity” (196).

In their 1988 collection Shakespeare on Television, J. C. Bulman and H. R. Coursen reprinted several earlier reviews, with one commentator suggesting that this production had been ill prepared and another calling it “sparkling” (303).

Susan Willis, in her 1991 book The BBC Shakespeare Plays: Making the Televised Canon (260–91), described the actual preparation and filming of this version at length (269ff). She commented that the characters here are full rather than merely farcical; that this production shows a society that emphasizes “law and strict justice before clemency” (260); that it uses a map on the floor to make Aegeon’s narration vivid (261); and that the set emphasizes “intimacy and domesticity” (262). She discussed the use of “doubling” in presenting the twins who could not be actually identical (265–67); the use of “one actor for each set of twins” (267); the use of “specific comic bits to underscore the idea of twinness” (267); and how “the verbal humor workable in the Renaissance proves the largest problem for the modern television audience” (268). She noted that because of this problem, much verbal play was cut from this production (269).

Discussing this version in his 1996 book Shakespeare in Production: Whose History?, H. R. Coursen deemed it “not funny, except for the business that Charles Gray invents for his Duke” (83). He added that “[i]f the play is not meant to be funny, then the BBC version is very good” (84), although he thought it “achieved some fine moments,” calling the wooing scene “excellent” (85).

Peter Cochran, in his 2013 book Small-Screen Shakespeare (57–58), found the farce unfunny, the set unrealistic, the extras “unconvincing” as Greeks, and the other characters boring (57) and/or unfunny. He condemned the lighting as ineffective and called the whole production a failure.

1987 Flying Karamazov Brothers Production

This athletic, unconventional version—a recording of a performance staged “live at Lincoln Center” in New York as part of public television’s Great Performances series—starred Karla Burns as the Duke of Ephesus; Paul David Magid as Antipholus of Syracuse; Randy Nelson as Dromio of Ephesus; Howard Jay Patterson as Antipholus of Ephesus; Samuel Ross Williams as Dromio of Syracuse; and a host of other performers playing characters not included in Shakespeare’s original play, including Daniel Furst as Shakespeare himself.

Reacting to this version in his 1996 book Shakespeare in Performance: Whose History?, H. R. Coursen wrote that this “production does not know whether it wants to be drama or circus” and argued that the “two elements compete against each other” (79). He considered the “physical material … seldom integrated into the dramatic, a fact underscored by the ‘jokes,’” which he found unfunny (80). Coursen considered the allusions too topical and ephemeral, saying that “this very topicality traps [the production] in a too-specific time and place” (81). The production’s effectiveness would therefore fade in time, and it would soon seem a relic of the 1980s.

Bibliography

Bulman, J. C., and H. R. Coursen, editors. Shakespeare on Television: An Anthology of Essays and Reviews. UP of New England, 1988.

Cochran, Peter. Small-Screen Shakespeare. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.

Coursen, Herbert R. Shakespeare in Production: Whose History? Ohio UP, 1996.

Fenwick, Henry. “The Production.” The Comedy of Errors, edited by Peter Alexander et al., British Broadcasting Corporation, 1984, pp. 19–27.

Roberts, Jeanne Addison. “The Shakespeare Plays on TV: The Comedy of Errors.” Shakespeare on Film Newsletter, vol. 9, no. 1, 1984, p. 4.

Willis, Susan. The BBC Shakespeare Plays: Making the Televised Canon. U of North Carolina P, 1991.

Wood, Robert E. “Cooling the Comedy: Television as a Medium for Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.” Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 4, 1986, pp. 195–202.

Wyver, John. Screening the Royal Shakespeare Company: A Critical History. The Arden Shakespeare, 2019.

Citation Types

Type

Format

MLA 9th

Rosenblum, Joseph, and H. Alan Pickrell. "The Comedy Of Errors." Critical Survey of Shakespeare: Film Adaptations, edited by Robert C. Evans, Salem Press, 2025. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=CSSF_0009.

APA 7th

Rosenblum, J., & Pickrell, H. A. (2025). The Comedy of Errors. In R. C. Evans (Ed.), Critical Survey of Shakespeare: Film Adaptations. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.

CMOS 17th

Rosenblum, Joseph and Pickrell, H. Alan. "The Comedy Of Errors." Edited by Robert C. Evans. Critical Survey of Shakespeare: Film Adaptations. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2025. Accessed December 08, 2025. online.salempress.com.

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