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Comedy
of Errors
is one of a handful of Shakespeare’s plays for which we have an early eyewitness account. Henry Helmes described the performance of a play, identified as Shakespeare’s, at Gray’s Inn Hall for young men training to be lawyers, on the night of Innocents’ Day, 28 December 1594:
    The next grand Night was intended to be upon Innocents-Day at Night … The Ambassador [of the Inner Temple] came … about Nine of the Clock at Night … there arose such a disordered Tumult and Crowd upon the Stage, that there was no Opportunity to effect that which was intended … The Lord Ambassador and his Train thought that they were not so kindly entertained as was before expected, and thereupon would not stay any longer at that time, but, in a sort, discontented and displeased. After their Departure the Throngs and Tumults did somewhat cease, although so much of them continued, as was able to disorder and confound any good Inventions whatsoever. In regard whereof … it was thought good not to offer anything 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 …
We preferred Judgments … against a Sorcerer or Conjuror that was supposed to be the Cause of that confused Inconvenience … And Lastly, that he foisted a Company of base and common Fellows to make up our Disorders with a Play of Errors and Confusions; and that Night had gained to us discredit, and itself a Nickname of Errors. 20
    A court performance is recorded as part of the Christmas festivities on 28 December 1604, but there are no further performances recorded until the eighteenth century, although the play’s title seems to have caught on and become proverbial to judge by the number of eighteenth-century references. 21 Even then, Shakespeare’s play appeared only in drastically cut and adapted texts that emphasizedfarce and romance elements or turned it into a musical entertainment. Dislike of the play’s improbable plot and the judgment of earlier scholars, that it was an apprentice piece derived from the Roman comedies of Plautus, adversely affected its place in the repertoire and history in performance.
    The first adaptation was a farce of 1716,
Every Body Mistaken
. The next in 1734,
See If You Like It, or ’Tis All a Mistake
, was more popular and successful and it was revived throughout the eighteenth century. In 1762 Thomas Hull’s
The Twins
added extra scenes and songs. It was a modified version of Hull’s play that John Philip Kemble presented. W. Woods produced a three-act farce,
The Twins, or Which Is Which
in 1780, and in 1819 Frederick Reynolds turned it into an opera with a selection of songs drawn from the “Plays, Poems and Sonnets of Shakespeare” with music by Thomas Arne and Mozart, among others. Reynolds’ version enjoyed great popular, if not critical, success and included hunting and drinking scenes.
    The Comedy of Errors
has a history of musical adaptation apart from Frederick Reynolds’ musical extravaganza. In 1786 the Anglo-Italian Stephen Storace composed a score for a French translation of the play
Gli Equivoci
, with a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte (the librettist for Mozart’s most famous operas). In the same year another musical version was produced at Fontainebleau by André Grétry with libretto by Joseph Patrat, based on Plautus’
Menaechmi
with borrowings from Shakespeare.
    It was Samuel Phelps who finally restored Shakespeare’s text to the stage in his productions at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in 1855 and 1856. Its ensemble nature and lack of an obvious star turn may have contributed to the play’s unpopularity in the age of actor managers and spectacular sets. The 1864 production for the celebrations of Shakespeare’s tercentenary at the