Shakespeare's Couples: The Twins!

Comedy of Errors is entirely dependent on audiences being amused when people mistake one twin for each other.

And I think Shakespeare knew that--that is, I think he knew that he was taking one comedy trope and pushing it as far as it could possibly go. You want twins? Fine, I'll give you TWINS! 

 

So we get not only a set of male twin protagonists but a set of male twin servants. Of the original twins, one is single and one is married. The single twin falls for the sister of the other twin's wife. The twinned servants mix up messages and deliveries. A twin subsequently gets arrested for one of these mix-ups...and so on and so forth.

 

The play can be funny if it is presented as a non-pause, slapstick production with music and Judi Dench talking at Gilbert & Sullivan patter speed. 

 

Yup, it's been done! I just described Trevor Nunn's production: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXP9MMI72Ts

 

Judi Dench plays the wife of the angry, cheating twin. Francesca Annis plays the sister: the beloved of the quieter, more confused twin.

 

What's impressive is that even in this rollercoaster-of-a-ride play (it starts out at an ordinary pace, then gets faster and faster and faster...and weirder), the couples are distinct. The twins are not twins in their marriages. 

 

That is, the angry, impulsive twin is paired with a feisty wife. They are kind of the Burton-Taylor couple. 

 

The other couple is more cerebral (they talk a great deal about love) and romantic. 

 

Shakespeare seems to have believed to his bones, "Each to their own."