Menaechmi
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Menaechmi, a Latin-language play, is considered by many as Plautus' greatest play. Its title is sometimes translated as The Brothers Menaechmus or The Two Menaechmuses.
The Menaechmi is a play about mistaken identity, involving a set of twins, Menaechmus of Epidamnus and Menaechmus of Syracuse. It incorporates various Roman stock characters including the parasite, the comic courtesan, the comic servant, the domineering wife, the doddering father-in-law and the quack doctor. As with most of Plautus's plays, much of the dialogue was sung.
Adaptations and influences
This play was the major source for William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors, which was subsequently adapted for the musical theatre by Rodgers and Hart in The Boys from Syracuse. A similar line of influence was Carlo Goldoni's 1747 play I due gemelli veneziani ("The two Venetian twins") (also adapted as The Venetian Twins in 1979). Shakespeare's Twelfth Night also features mistaken twins, the sister dressed as a boy.
