The setup is this: a guy from Syracuse called Egeon has made his way to the xenophobic Ephesus, a place known for magic, filthy paganism, and other such freaky business, where he is immediately arrested for being foreign and told that if he cannot pay a ransom he'll be put to death. Ruh-roh. He pleads his tragic case to the duke: Egeon has been looking for his son, Antipholus, and his son's servant, Dromio, who set out from home on their own mission some years earlier, and he has been wandering around for so long that he had no idea that Ephesus was jerk-central. To appease the duke, who is sympathetic but bound by law, Egeon tells a TRAGIC STORY...
He and his wife Emelia had identicial twin sons (both of whom are called Antipholus for reasons), and also 'inherited' another set of identical twins from a low-born woman (both of whom are called Dromio for reasons), who will be the Antipholuses (Antipholies?) servants (because inequality). Egeon and Emelia and the four infants get on a ship to (something something doesn't matter) but! Storm! Catastrophe! Calamity! The sailors bail, leaving the civilians to fend for themselves. One of each twin are lashed to one mast and the other two to the other, and during the maelstrom the boat breaks in half. Egeon is left with one of the pairs, and his wife and the other babies are gone... end flashback.
It is a very very sad story, and a rather long monologue that is quite comically stopped halfway through when Egeon apropos of nothing says '...and I guess you can work the rest out from there', so kind of a weird way to open a comedy. But, it's a great setup: now adult, Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse have been travelling for years looking for their twins, who probably don't know that they have brothers. Although Egeon doesn't realise it, they are all in Ephesus now - where the other twins have just so happened to have grown up - but if Egeon can't find some money quick smart he's going to be executed. This plot is then forgotten about until the very end.
Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse are bosom buddies, despite their master-servant relationship, and both are pretty naive and good natured; they are essentially cheerful backpackers on a heart-warming mission in a time before hacky sacks and couch surfing.
Their urbane Ephesean counterparts are more hardened and cynical: Antipholus is an ambitious young merchant with a hot, upwardly mobile wife Adriana, and Dromio is quick-witted and streetwise.
When things start going south, the local pair upgrade from irate to outraged, while the baffled Syracuseans(?) decide pretty quickly that all the craziness is down to Ephesus's murky reputation for sorcery.
Thankfully it doesn't go all Oprah and soft-focus misty-eyed sentiment - no slo-mo reunion scenes and hand-holding. Instead, each twin keeps being mistaken for the other, including by their respective servant and master, resulting in COMEDY PLUS. This includes:
- misunderstandings over money, gold chains and jewels!
- beatings!
- anger-fuelled threats of adultery!
- more beatings!
- pages worth of confused orders!
- misrecognition!
- even more beatings!
- arrests!
- escapes from custody!
- a swordfight!
- an exorcism by a quack doctor!
... and best of all, Dromio of Syracuse being aggressively pursued by his counterpart's robust and lusty fiancée, Nell the kitchenmaid, who he finds not at all to his liking.
His account of this to his Antipholus in act 3 scene 2 reads like an extended 'yo mama' joke:
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE What is she?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE A very reverent body; ay, such a one as a man may not speak of without he say 'Sir-reverence.' I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a wondrous fat marriage.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE How dost thou mean a fat marriage?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, sir, she's the kitchen wench and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to but to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light. I warrant, her rags and the tallow in them will burn a Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday, he'll burn a week longer than the whole world.
...and so on. Eventually we get a geography lesson:
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE What's her name?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Nell, sir; but her name and three quarters, that's an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from hip to hip.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Then she bears some breadth?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE In what part of her body stands Ireland?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, in her buttocks: I found it out by the bogs.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Where Scotland?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I found it by the barrenness; hard in the palm of the hand.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Where France?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war against her heir.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Where England?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.
... and on to Spain,the Indies, Belgium, the Netherlands, and so on. These sorts of exchanges, in which Dromio regales the equally baffled and horrified Antipholus with stories of his confusing exploits, are quite lovely, and highlight the affectionate friendship that they share despite their differing social standings. For me, their bond, their fish out of water status and their shared goals - to find their brothers, then to take advantage of what at first appears to be a beneficial situation, then to get the hell out of dodge - also provides the story with a sense of heart that might be lacking in other such farcical fare.
Of course it all works out fine in the end because it's not the sort of play where family members get baked into pies or stabbed in towers. Egeon isn't executed, the sets of brothers are reunited, and it just so happens that the Abbess who helps some of them out is actually Egeon's lost wife Emelia. Hurrah. It all closes with a gorgeous moment in which the Dromios finally get a chance to address one another. Play over, hearts warmed, money well spent.
Verdict: A+++ would read again.
