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P.G. Wodehouse was born on October
15, 1881. He died 93 years later, on Valentine's Day, 1975. He is considered one of
the greats amidst Britain’s millennia-spanning collection of talented writers.
Especially in the 20th century. In fact, after the famous G.K.
Chesterton died in 1936, it was declared (by author T.H. White) that Wodehouse
was “now the greatest living master of the English language”.
The unabridged cast of characters in
Wodehouse’s works is most diverse—from gentlemen’s personal gentlemen, to dippy
chaps and drippy girls, to lords with a love of gardening, to verbose fellows
without objection to crime, to storytellers with a yarn about each of their
various relatives, to headstrong and hardy aunts, and countless other types.
And they all somehow always manage to find themselves at a British manor with
an object to pilfer, an unfortunate engagement to be broken up, lent money to
be repaid, and/or several cases of mistaken identity.
Which brings us right back round to
what might normally have been the start. This essay is not, of course, really
about P.G. Wodehouse. Though it might as well be, as you’ll soon see. My
subject is “The Comedy of Errors”, by the Elizabethan Bard, William
Shakespeare.
The plot, you see, starts out with
an old codger named Ægean, who’s been sentenced death for hopping the pond to
Ephesus. It and his birth-town, Syracuse, have a rivalry to match Oxford and
Cambridge on Boat Race Night! But the point is, Ægean tells his story from the
start, about how he had a pair of twins, both named Antipholus, but his family
was split in half by a shipwreck. He ended up with one Antipholus and a
different twin, born the same day, named Dromio. That was decades ago. And he’s
been on the hunt for his wife and the other halves of the twin sets since.
I suppose I ought to make this very
clear right at the start. There are two sets of twins, both male. One set are
the sons of Ægean. The other set are from a poorer family, but born the same
day. Those of Ægean are both named Antipholus, and the poorer set are both
named Dromio. It’s beyond me why anyone in real life would give both their
twins the precise same name. It’s as if they want confusion. There’s
some raw work pulled at the font from time to time, Jeeves.
It’s here that we shift over to
Antipholus and Dromio #1, of Syracuse. They’ve been searching for their twins
for the past seven years, and have just arrived in Ephesus. Unbeknownst to them,
their twins are long-time residents of Ephesus. And the whole thing starts when
Antipholus #1 sends his Dromio—oh, and the Dromios are something like
gentlemen’s personal gentlemen to the Antipholi—sends him to get their rooms
ready.
At that point, the second
Dromio comes up to fetch the second Antipholus home for supper. Only it isn’t
the second Antipholus. It’s the first, and neither has any idea that they’ve
got the wrong one. The four of them keep mixing up one with the other, and then
the other for the one, over and over. Then yet more people get involved. Women
and servants and merchants all begin mistaking the twins for each other without
realizing it. And furthermore, the second Antipholus is married.
You can jolly well see that it turns
messy right out of the garden gate. A true perplexity of the first order, what?
Of course, one can take for granted
that it’ll work itself out in the end, by some sort of congregation of all the
play’s characters in one spot, and finish with the wise words of gentlemen’s
personal gentlemen. It is a comedy, after all. So there’s no need to
spoil the precise ending for those inexperienced in this play.
But finales aside, let us take a
look at the plot itself.
There is quite clearly a deal of
mistaken identity—though in this case, it is completely accidental, and is not
purposefully continued by any party. Important distinction, you see. In the
Wodehouse stories, one may be mistaken for another, but he decides to
continue under that pretense. Then of course, he must get someone else to
pretend to be him. And then the one with the briefly-pilfered identity turns up
and sets all plans to naught. In the C of E, however, no one is pretending to
be anyone but himself.
Some part of the plot occurs at the
house of Antipholus E.—that’s for “Ephesus”, you understand. That we may
consider, for our purposes, to be the Shakespearean equivalent of Blandings or
Brinkley, a sort of stately Ephesian home, servants and all.
There are three romantic
entanglements which, until things are sorted out, must be considered
unfortunate. Antipholus E is wedded, as I’ve previously noted. However, his
Syracusan twin is mistaken for him, the husband, when he in fact has no
connection to or affection for this woman he’s not seen once in his life. In
fact, Antipholus S begins to fall in love with the sensible sister of the wife.
Dromio S, as well, finds himself “engaged” to a rather rotund kitchen wench, in
whom could be found out countries (according to Dromio’s own all-encompassing
description).
The plot also features a mix-up
involving a golden chain—which one Antipholus ordered and the other accepted.
After this, Antipholus E asks the merchant for the golden chain he never
received. The merchant then flagrantly demands the money he was never
paid for the golden chain which he already delivered (to his twin). And one
thing after another occurs to prevent any of the right people getting either
chain or cheque.
Also, though nothing is directly
stolen, a young lady insists that her ring was snatched from her room by
Antipholus E. This is not the case. But going into specifics may lead the both
of us further into the plot’s labyrinth without the golden thread of the full
play to lead us safely out again.
I could continue, too. I could go
into details of the longsuffering Dromios, the headstrong wife and her
practical sister, and the eventual involvement of the Ephesian bobbies (who, if
they have any helmets, certainly retain them), and yet further. But there’s no
need of that. It must by now be evident that one might set this play in
Totliegh Towers, and all but a few names might easily be mistaken for something
out of a Wodehouse work.
And this, you see, is a level of
humour that can rarely be attained in our modern day—a plot complexity that
lends itself to confusion without becoming utter poppycock. Countless threads
seem to become completely and hopelessly entangled during the course of the
tale-telling. But no twist of twine is left raveled by the conclusion. Upon
arrival, the ending makes sense (even if you’re not entirely certain how
you got there).
Wodehouse and Shakespeare are both
virtuosos at this sort of thing, of course—the former learning greatly from the
latter, I’d imagine. One or two examples on film would be “The Court Jester”
and “Oscar”. But there are precious few others that come, at the least, to my
mind.
Then again, one must admit it is
difficult to do properly. This is likely why we stick to pratfalls (which can
certainly be funny) or crude humour (which never is). To be honest, trying to
find something humourous of this calibre is, in the words of Antipholus S,
“like a drop of water that in the ocean seeks another drop.”
And yet, somehow, the drops have
found each other. William Shakespeare and P. G. Wodehouse, twin masters of
confusion, of cleverness, and of comicality. We need more of their like. Yes,
Wodehouse may defer to Shakespeare as the wiser senior. But in the aspects I’ve
shown you, in their comedy, they are so alike as they may “go hand in hand, not
one before another.”
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Well,
what-ho, what-ho, what-ho? That's my essay, and dashed if it hasn't set me off
on a Wodehousian kick. I daresay somebody ought to really set the play in a
Blandings-type place, costumes and all, and perform it like that.
Anybody
here that's got a mind with something on it--or even, perhaps, a spot of
Wodehousian experience? Tell me all in the comments!
For
now, I must attend to my Anatolian task of creating supper. Off we go, Jeeves!
