This comedy is a very good comedy with no disguises this time but with two pairs of twins who were estranged by some storm during a sea voyage when they were infants. Plus imagine the father who was estranged from one of each pair and the mother separated in her own way and not even knowing that those who arrived with her in Ephesus were hers. It all turns and whirls around these lost connections and these pairs of twins that create havoc on the main square of Ephesus. The square is full of mountebanks and other street artists, peddlers and vendors, hawkers in one word. And it is a real merry-go-round from one side to the other and all around. They are all so ignorant of the tricky situation they are in that they are all turned into curtal dogs turning the spit in their wheels: "To conclude, this drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me, call'd me Dromio; swore I was assured to her; told me what privy marks I had about me, as, the mark of my shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I amazed ran from her as a witch: And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith and my heart of steel, She had transform'd me to a curtal dog and made me turn i' the wheel." (Act III, Scene 2, Dromio of Syracuse). But it is a comedy and that incessant turning may make you dizzy, so the duke will finally put some order in that disorder and the twins will find out their fate and the parents will be reunited and the children will recognize their parents. And to square the dog-wheel, couples will be built to come to the magic number of eight, if possible. The two pairs of twins make four, the parents will make six and the Duke will go to the party with the Courtezan mind you and that will make eight. But you also have the parents, each son with his wife or wife to be, the sister of the previous one, and the Duke and the Courtezan and the two Dromio going their way hand in hand, and that is eight again. Or even the two sons Antipholus, the two brothers Dromio, the two sisters who are married to or will marry the Antipholus, and their parents and you have eight again. Speaking of squaring a whirlwind, Shakespeare here is great. The BBC does a beautiful show because the twins really look like twins and the rhythm is so dynamic that we are really enchanted by the job. It is true too that all actors are perfect in their respective places and the slaps look and sound like slaps and quite many other little tricks like a rope turned into a hanging noose and a schoolteacher who is also a doctor and a great master in the art of dealing with insane people (the schoolteacher as much as the doctor), to his own expense in a way. Good entertaining job.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID