This is why music has been included in this performance, which is all original and informed by research on ancient music. Music was an important part of Roman comedy, and 60% of the Menaechmi was accompanied. We hope our twist on Plautus is able to transport you the same way it did us! Our module group has provided a startling array of talents which has created a vibrancy between both class and production to be inspired by. We have tried to maintain some of the historical accuracy by speaking in meter in the prologue and by including songs, but we’ve added a 21st century feel to the humour. Splitting our time between professors and prostitutes has led to an absolutely fabulous semester! Thank you Dr Beppe Pezzini for helping us become engrossed in a play in a way that none of us have ever experienced before being able to play around with a two-thousand year old play has been both surreal and a joy. Also, we thank Mermaids, Music Centre, the Barron Theatre, and all the friends who have helped us. We wanted to thank in particular the School of Classics for their financial support, and the Byre Theatre for hosting and supporting the performance. Translators: David Andrews, Michael Helvert It’s been an enriching experience, from a didactic, cultural and also human point of view. ” A lot of blood has been offered for the production of this play, and I want to thank each of the students involved, individually, for the time, passion and effort that have put into it. The great Classical scholar Wilamowitz used to say that “to make the ancients speak, we must feed them with our own blood. Whenever artists have exploited the comical potential of appearing like someone, while not being them (the ‘twin-motif’), it is likely that they have been directly or indirectly influenced by this play. Plautus’ Menaechmi is the archetype of the comedy of errors, one of the most influential texts that have survived from the ancient world.
About plautus menaechmi how to#
Already then people were obsessed with status, tags and emoticons, although they called them with different names.Īlready then, people had to face challenges of identity, multiculturalism, class division, and communication in a biased and divided society.Īnd, above all, already then people knew how to laugh about all these things, while reflecting on them. Plautus’ Menaechmi was performed in Latin around the late third century BC in Rome, in a world and a culture that were very different from ours.Īnd yet a lot of things were similar. brochureĪ ROMAN COMEDY FROM LATIN STUDENTS About the play Research paper: Article on the mirror metaphor and Roman Comedy by Beppe Pezzini (forthcoming in HSCPh). The project addressed at all levels of the production (translation, costumes, directing, music etc.) the long-standing question about how to adapt an ancient play for a modern performance, between faithfulness to the original and the need for public accessibility. A special performance was held for local schools. The play was performed at the Byre theatre in St Andrews on 30 April and, with more than 400 people in attendance over the two days. Beppe Pezzini, and involved an original production of Plautus Menaechmi, performed by students attending his module on Roman Comedy (LT4207) in 2018/2019. SOSICLES: True, he’s not all that dissimilar when I look at myself.
MESSENIO: It’s your spitting image! He’s couldn’t be more alike!