The Comedy of Errors

Our Senior dramatists are bringing Shakespeare's shortest and fastest play, 'The Comedy of Errors' into a more modern day setting. A merchant from Syracuse named Egeon arrives in Ephesus under a death sentence - the two cities are at war, and trespass is capital - and spends the opening scene telling the Duke how a shipwreck thirty-three years earlier cost him his wife, one of his twin sons, and one of the twin servants he had bought to attend them. Unknown to Egeon, his lost son (Antipholus of Ephesus) has been living in the very city about to execute his father. And unknown to everyone, Egeon's other son (Antipholus of Syracuse) has arrived in Ephesus that same morning, searching for the brother he has never found, with his own servant Dromio in tow.
For four acts, Shakespeare keeps the twins apart and lets the confusions pile up. The wrong Dromio is sent for the wrong master. The wrong Antipholus gets hauled home to the wrong wife. A gold chain is ordered, delivered, denied, and made the subject of an arrest. A courtesan loses a ring. A husband is locked out of his own house, diagnosed as a demoniac, tied up, and exorcised and a servant is claimed in marriage by a maid. Everyone who encounters one of the visiting Syracusans believes they have met a lunatic, and the visiting Syracusans, in turn, become convinced that Ephesus is a city of witches, sorcerers, and sprites.
The resolution happens in a single, crowded final scene outside a priory, where the day's walking wounded have all gathered to accuse each other before the Duke. Egeon is led in for execution; the Abbess steps out of the priory with one set of twins; the other set wanders in from the street; and thirty-three years of separation end. The title of this wonderful play suggests a comedy of mistakes, and the whole machine runs on mistake. But what the play finally is about is the joy of being recognized.