Comedy of Errors

In Shakespeare’s fast-paced farce, a shipwreck separates a merchant’s family: Aegeon, his wife, their twin sons, and the twins’ identical servants are scattered, leaving each parent with one son and one servant. Years later, the two surviving pairs unknowingly converge in Ephesus. Young Antipholus of Syracuse has come to search for his lost twin, accompanied by his servant, Dromio of Syracuse. Meanwhile, Antipholus of Ephesus and Dromio of Ephesus already live in the city. Because the brothers and their servants look exactly alike, ordinary encounters quickly become a maze of mistaken identities, confused relationships, unexpected accusations, and comic misunderstandings.

The trouble is heightened by Ephesus’s law forbidding Syracusans from entering the city: Aegeon is arrested, while the visiting Antipholus and Dromio struggle to understand why strangers insist they know them. Through slapstick, wordplay, and disguises, the play builds toward a question at the heart of its chaos: can the separated family members recognize one another and make sense of the errors surrounding them?