All right, for no particular reason, I decided to start with The Comedy of Errors. I'm quite fond of this play, silly as it is. I read the introduction in the Pelican Shakespeare (I don't own a Riverside, sue me...), which got me thinking about the play's genre.
See, when reading Act 1 Scene 1, two things jumped out at me. First of all, Shakespeare managed to get away with having a TON of exposition right at the beginning by putting the character saying the exposition in danger of death. That's clever. Second, just looking at this first scene, the play doesn't seem especially comedic. The only clues we have that we aren't reading a tragedy are the inherent absurdity of the whole pair-of-twins idea, and the fact that the play is titled The Comedy of Errors. But otherwise, this is quite the somber beginning, as the reasonably sympathetic Egeon looks like he's going to die.
Stay tuned for more later as I return to the play...
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1 comment:
Yeah, talk about a spoiler title! I also wonder if it was assumed in Shakespeare's time that people would be acting out the story in the background like most productions do these days. Because otherwise it would be extra boring. So anyway, yay for my first post!
P.S. I am going to attempt to comment on everything you have posted here, so don't go too fast, otherwise I may never catch up with you. Speed bumps, please!
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