SOURCE: Miola, Robert S., ed. “The Play and the Critics.” In The Comedy of Errors: Critical Essays, pp. 3-51. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1997.

In the following excerpt, Miola provides an overview of the play's sources, genre, characterization, language, and critical reception.

1. Prologue

I can't understand who planned all of this overnight fame, It's a game, it's a game, it's a shame but it must be a game! Every step that I take, every move that I make, Every place that I've been, every sight that I've seen, I've already been there. Do I know me? 

Pleasantly bewildered, Roger Rees's Antipholus of Syracuse sings and dances the above verse in Trevor Nunn's sprightly musical adaptation (1976). Unlike him, early critics and audiences easily identify the original planner of the game—Plautus, whose Menaechmi furnishes Shakespeare with the main confusion of identical twins and the outlines of plot. Witness the...