Menaechmi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
Moscha had twin sons, Menaechmus and Sosicles. He took one of his twins, Menaechmus, with him on a business trip when he was only seven. They were separated and Menaechmus was adopted by a businessman who lived in Epidamnus. His original father died of grief, and his twin brother was renamed Menaechmus after his long-lost brother.
After years of searching, "Menaechmus" Sosicles is ready to give up hope and return home. The play contains many cases of mistaken identity.
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"), adapted as The Venetian Twins in 1979 by Nick Enright with music by Terence Clarke.
In 2003, Menaechmi was performed in English and Latin by the Harvard Classical Club at Agassiz Theater, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
