The Comedy of Errors (24 page)

Baldwin, T. W.,
On the Compositorial Genetics of The Comedy of Errors
(1965). Magisterial study in which Shakespeare’s use of sources is explored in order to throw light on his methods of composition and body of work generally.

Bryant, J. A., Jr.,
Shakespeare and the Uses of Comedy
(1986). First chapter on
The Comedy of Errors
provides a good basic introduction to the play.

Charney, Maurice, ed.,
Shakespearean Comedy
(1980). Contains useful discussion of Roman comedy in Chapter 1 and an analysis of
The Comedy of Errors
in Chapter 2.

Collins, Michael J., ed.,
Shakespeare’s Sweet Thunder: Essays on the Early Comedies
(1997). Varied collection that includes three essays on
The Comedy of Errors:
Robert S. Miola, “The Influence of New Comedy on
The Comedy of Errors
and
The Taming of the Shrew,”
pp. 21–34; Ann Thompson, “ ‘Errors’ and ‘Labors’: Feminism and Early Shakespearean Comedy,” pp. 90–101; Bruce R. Smith, “A Night of Errors and the Dawn of Empire: Male Enterprise in
The Comedy of Errors,”
pp. 102–25.

Frye, Northrop, “The Argument of Comedy” (1949), in
Comedy: Developments in Criticism
, ed. D. J. Palmer (1984), pp. 74–84. A classic, essential essay.

Greenberg, Marissa, “Crossing from Scaffold to Stage: Execution Processions and Generic Conventions in
The Comedy of Errors
and
Measure for Measure,”
in
Shakespeare and Historical Formalism
(2007), pp. 127–46. Historicist reading which takes the play’s opening execution procession as its starting point.

Mason, Pamela, ed.,
Shakespeare: Early Comedies
, Casebook Series (1995). Part 1 on
The Comedy of Errors
includes important early criticism, later twentieth-century criticism, and a short section on late twentieth-century productions, pp. 31–85.

Miola, Robert S., ed.,
The Comedy of Errors: Critical Essays
(1997). Excellent collection; Part I, “The Critical History”; Part II, “Different Voices,” significant essays on all aspects of the play; Part III, “In Performance,” discusses major productions to 1990.

Parker, Patricia, “Shakespeare and the Bible:
The Comedy of Errors,”
in
Shakespeare and the Literary Tradition
, ed. Stephen Orgel and Sean Keifer (1999). Argues for the importance of biblical allusions as a way of understanding the play.

Magoulios, Michael, ed.,
Shakespearean Criticism
, Vol. 26 (1995). Includes stage history, reviews, and retrospective accounts of selected productions.

Miola, Robert S., ed.,
The Comedy of Errors: Critical Essays
(1997). Part III, “In Performance,” discusses major productions to 1990.

Smallwood, Robert, ed.,
Players of Shakespeare
5 (2003). Ian Hughes discusses playing Dromio of Syracuse in Lynne Parker’s 2000 RSC production, pp. 29–42.

The Comedy of Errors
, directed by Simon Cellan Jones, BBC Shakespeare Series (1983, DVD 2006). Stars Cyril Cusack, Simon Gray, and Wendy Hiller, employs split-screen technique to double twins, with Michael Kitchen as both Antipholuses and Roger Daltrey (of the Who) as the Dromios.

The Comedy of Errors
, directed by Richard Monette (1989, DVD 2008). Filmed version of Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario, production with twins’ roles doubled, played by Geordie Johnson and Keith Dinicol.

Do Dooni Char
, directed by Debu Sen (1968, DVD 2007). Bollywood version, loosely based on Shakespeare’s play, starring Kishore Kumar, Tanuja, and Asit Sen.

Angoor
, directed by Gulzar (1982, DVD 2002). Highly acclaimed Bollywood version with Sanjeev Kumar and Deven Verma doubling roles as twins.

Big Business
, directed by Jim Abrahams (1988, DVD 2004). Loosely based, updated version set in twentieth-century America with female twins played by Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin.

The Boys from Syracuse
, directed by Edward Sutherland (1940, DVD 2006). Disappointing film of Rodgers and Hart musical adaptation starring Allan Jones, Joe Penner, Irene Hervey, Martha Raye, and Charles Butterworth.

1.
William Hazlitt,
Characters of Shakespear’s Plays
(1817, repr. 1870), p. 232.

2.
A. W. Schlegel,
Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature
(1808–11) in
The Romantics on Shakespeare
, ed. Jonathan Bate (1992), pp. 278–79.

3.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Lectures and Notes on Shakspere and Other English Poets
(1811–1818), ed. T. Ashe (1900), pp. 292–93.

4.
Hazlitt,
Characters of Shakespear’s Plays
, p. 233.

5.
Bertrand Evans,
Shakespeare’s Comedies
(1960), p. 1.

6.
“The Argument of Comedy” originally appeared in
English Institute Essays 1948
, ed. D. A. Robertson (1949), and has often been reprinted in critical anthologies. Frye himself adapted it for inclusion in his classic study,
Anatomy of Criticism
(1957). Quoted here from
Comedy: Developments in Criticism
, ed. D. J. Palmer (1984), pp. 74–84.

7.
Barbara Freedman, “Egeon’s Debt: Self-Division and Self-Redemption in
The Comedy of Errors,” English Literary Renaissance
10 (1980), pp. 360–83 (pp. 363–64).

8.
Gāmini Salgādo, “ ‘Time’s Deformed Hand’: Sequence, Consequence, and Inconsequence in
The Comedy of Errors,” Shakespeare Survey
25 (1972), pp. 81–91 (p. 82).

9.
Alexander Leggatt,
Shakespeare’s Comedy of Love
(1974), p. 10.

10.
Freedman, “Egeon’s Debt,” p. 375.

11.
Evans,
Shakespeare’s Comedies
, p. 7.

12.
Frye, “The Argument of Comedy,” p. 79.

13.
Frye, “The Argument of Comedy,” p. 80.

14.
Harold Brooks, “Themes and Structure in
The Comedy of Errors,”
in
Early Shakespeare
, ed. John Russell Brown and Bernard Harris (1961), pp. 55–72, (p. 60).

15.
Jonathan Hall,
Anxious Pleasures: Shakespearean Comedy and the Nation-State
(1995), p. 47.

16.
Brooks, “Themes and Structure in
The Comedy of Errors,”
p. 66.

17.
Leggatt,
Shakespeare’s Comedy of Love, p. 17
.

18.
Freedman, “Egeon’s Debt,” pp. 375–76.

19.
Amanda Piesse, “Space for the Self: Place, Persona and Self-Projection in
The Comedy of Errors
and
Pericles,”
in
Renaissance Configurations: Voices/Bodies/Spaces,
1580–1690
, ed. Gordon McMullan (1998), pp. 151–70, (p. 157).

20.
Henry Helmes,
Gesta Grayorum
, ed. W. W. Greg, 1914, quoted in F. E. Halliday, “Gray’s Inn Record,”
Shakespeare and His Critics
(1949), p. 351.

21.
The Shakspere Allusion-Book: A Collection of Allusions to Shakspere from 1591 to 1700
, originally compiled by C. M. Ingleby, Miss L. Toulmin Smith, and Dr. F. J. Furnivall, with the assistance of the New Shakspere Society (1909, reissued 1932).

22.
The Times
, London, 27 February 1905.

23.
Lionel Hale,
News Chronicle
, 13 April 1938.

24.
Alan Pryce-Jones,
Theater Arts
, Vol. XLVII, Nos. 8–9 (August–September, 1963), pp. 14, 68.

25.
Howard Taubman, “Syracuse Boys,”
New York Times
, 13 June 1963.

26.
Dunbar H. Ogden,
Shakespeare Quarterly
, Vol. XIV, No. 4 (Autumn 1963), pp. 437–38.

27.
Robert Smallwood,
Shakespeare Survey
53 (2000), pp. 261–62.

28.
Smallwood,
Shakespeare Survey
53, pp. 261–62.

29.
Dennis Harvey,
Variety
, No. 7 (3–9 April 2000), p. 58.

30.
John Pettigrew,
Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’études canadiennes
, Vol. XI, No. 1 (February 1976), pp. 55–56.

31.
Mel Gussow,
New York Times’ Theater Review
, 1 June 1987 (discussing the 1987 New York revival).

32.
Albert E. Karlson, “Shakespeare Meets the Karamazovs,”
Shakespeare Quarterly
, Vol. XXXIV, No. 2 (Summer 1983), pp. 227–28.

33.
Alastair Macaulay,
Financial Times
, 13 May 1998.

34.
Leanne B. French, “It’s da Bomb,”
Entertainment Design
34, No. 5 (May 2000), pp. 8–9.

35.
Alvin Klein,
New York Times
, 24 June 2001.

36.
Alvin Klein,
New York Times
, 24 June 2001d.

37.
Bruce Weber, “Making an Exotic Circus of a Shakespearean Farce,”
New York Times
, 12 July 2002, pp. B2, E2.

38.
Weber, “Making an Exotic Circus of a Shakespearean Farce.”

39.
Toby O’Connor Morse,
Independent
, 16 October 2003.

40.
Alfred Hickling,
Guardian
, 25 February 2005.

41.
Sam Marlowe,
The Times
, London, 25 February 2005.

42.
Ian Hughes on playing Dromio of Syracuse in
Players of Shakespeare
5, ed. Robert Smallwood (2003), pp. 29–42, (p. 30).

43.
Dominic Cavendish,
Daily Telegraph
, 29 July 2005.

44.
Colin Chambers,
Inside the Royal Shakespeare Company
(2004), pp. 22–23.

45.
Kenneth Tynan,
Observer
, 16 September 1962.

46. Chambers,
Inside the Royal Shakespeare Company
, p. 22.

47.
Michael Billington,
Guardian
, 21 June 1972.

48.
Harold Hobson,
Sunday Times
, 16 September 1962.

49.
Billington,
Guardian
, 21 June 1972.

50.
Birmingham Mail
, 16 September 1962.

51.
Irving Wardle,
The Times
, London, 30 September 1976.

52.
Peter Holland,
English Shakespeares
(1997), p. 58.

53.
Sarah Chappell,
Spalding Guardian
, 25 September 1996.

54.
Charles Spencer,
Telegraph
, 25 April 2000.

55.
Spencer,
Telegraph
, 25 April 2000.

56.
Michael Billington,
Guardian
, 29 July 2005.

57.
Billington,
Guardian
, 29 July 2005.

58.
Cavendish,
Daily Telegraph
, 29 July 2005.

59.
Benedict Nightingale,
The Times
, London, 29 July 2005.

60.
Victoria Segal,
Sunday Times
, 7 July 2005.

61.
Ian Hughes, in Smallwood,
Players of Shakespeare
5, p. 42.

62.
Cavendish,
Daily Telegraph
, 29 July 2005.

63.
Holland,
English Shakespeares
, p. 59.

64.
Holland,
English Shakespeares
, p. 62.

65.
Wardle,
The Times
, 30 September 1976.

1.
Charles and Harry Webb (1864) Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

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4.
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5.
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6.
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7.
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8.
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