Review date: 19/3/1999
Publisher: Penguin
Translation: 1965
Of all Plautus' plays, the plot of this one is the best known to English speaking readers, as it is the basis for Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors. The major changes Shakespeare made were to increase the length of the play and the number of characters, making the brothers' servants twins as well as their masters and introducing the idea of the execution of Aegeon. Plautus' play has no such serious side and is much more purely farcical, much play being made over the way one brother steals a dress of his wife's to give it to his mistress (he smuggles it out of the house by wearing it with his own clothes).
That really says all there is to say about this play; it is entertaining and funny, but has nothing serious to say.
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