THE STAGE-HISTORY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2010
Summary
In spite of an entry in the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber, which states that the Lord Chamberlain's Company was acting before the Court at Greenwich on the evening of 28 December 1594, it is commonly accepted that on that evening they were acting Shakespeare's play, The Comedy of Errors, in Gray's Inn during the Christmas Revels. Gesta Grayorum, the contemporary account of those revels, gives a vivid picture of the scene. When the Lord Ambassador from ‘Templaria’, the Inner Temple, had been placed in a chair of state in the hall, ‘there arose such a disordered Tumult and Crowd upon the Stage, that there was no Opportunity to effect that which was intended’. Worshipful Personages, and ‘Gentlewomen, whose Sex did privilege them from Violence’, crowded on to the stage, and might not be displaced. The Lord Ambassador and his train departed, ‘in a sort, discontented and displeased’; but still the tumult went on, so as to ‘disorder and confound any good Inventions whatsoever. In regard whereof, as also for that the Sports intended were especially for the gracing of the Templarians, it was thought good not to offer any thing of Account, saving Dancing and Revelling with Gentlewomen; and after such Sports, a Comedy of Errors (like to Plautus his Menechmus) was played by the Players. So that Night was begun, and continued to the end, in nothing but Confusion and Errors; whereupon, it was ever afterwards called, The Night of Errors.’
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- Information
- The Comedy of ErrorsThe Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare, pp. xxvi - xxixPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009