Plautus is great fun - like Shakespeare or Molière, his comedies are really enjoyable, though simpler, for there are no serious themes in these farces.
Plautus is very different from Aristophanes, the first Greek comedy writer. Aristophanes' plays are full of political satire and social criticism, and his frequent references to current events and persons make his work difficult to read - almost every other sentence you have to look up something in the notes (reason why I have selected Lysistrata, which is relatively easy to understand without commentary). But after Aristophanes' time, we get a simpler type of comedy in Greece. This new style was later called "new comedy" in opposition to the "old comedy" style of Aristophanes, and new-style plays were written by Menander (342-290 BCE) and others who wrote between 320 and 260 BCE.
Plautus learned his trade from the "new comedy," farces that could be performed without risk of giving offense. Instead, there is much more of a focus on the home and the family unit - something that the Romans could easily understand and adopt. There are also no heroic or supernatural overtones. The "new comedy" uses stock plots (thwarted lovers) and stock characters (the cunning slave, the wily merchant, the boastful soldier, the cruel father). One of the lovers is usually a foundling, the discovery of whose true birth and identity makes marriage possible in the end.
Plautus often used the plots from Greek plays, as well as Greek settings. After all, the Romans who learned the theater from Sicily (which had been colonized by the Greeks), thought about plays as something essentially Greek.
[Plautus]
Plautus (254-184 BCE) wrote about 120 plays, of which 20 have survived more or less intact. His plays are the earliest literary works in Latin to have come down to us in their entirety (i.e. not in fragments). He may have worked as a theater carpenter or scene shifter before becoming a professional playwright - he knew the theater inside out. His plays were created between 205 and 184 BCE.
As indicated above, Plautus' comedies are mostly adapted from Greek models for a Roman audience. He not only reworked the Greek texts to give them a flavor that would appeal to local Roman audiences, but above all poured the plot and characters in virtuoso language with a strong expression, often using alliteration, punning and other literary devices.
One of Plautus' most famous characters is "the clever slave," who often drives the plot in his plays. Plautus took the stock slave character from the "new comedy" and altered it for his own purposes, by finding humor in slaves tricking their masters or comparing themselves to great heroes. Other typical figures in Plautus are: the young man in love who spends his father's money as if it were water; the strict father; the domineering wife; the parasite, a stereotypical figure who renders all kinds of services to his master, in exchange for a meal; the comic courtesan; the quack doctor.
Note also that Plautus' plays were a form of musical comedy: they consisted of songs (arias), recitative and spoken dialogue. Costumes were standardized, masks were worn in the Greek fashion, and all players were male.
The plot of The Brothers Menaechmus is as follows: two identical twins from Syracuse are separated when still very young; the eldest twin is believed dead so the youngest one takes his name, Menaechmus, in his memory. Menaechmus I, however, is very much alive and resides in Epidamnus where he has married a wealthy wife. Menaechmus II has been looking all his life for his brother and now happens to visit Epidamnus, where he is of course immediately confused with his twin brother. Many curious and laughable mistakes happen between him and persons who are involved with Menaechmus I, such as his domineering wife, his courtesan
Erotium, his parasite Peniculus, his father-in-law, etc. Lastly it is the clever slave Messenio of Menaechmus II who clears things up. The brothers recognize each other and Messenio receives his
liberty as a reward. Menaechmus I decides to sell his possessions and returns with his twin brother Menaechmus II to his native place Syracuse.
Plautus's influence on later literature is enormous, especially on two literary giants, Shakespeare and Molière, both in a direct and indirect sense. The Brothers Menaechmus by Plautus was for example the major source for William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors - Shakespeare even doubles the identical twins by making the servants also into twin brothers. The play spawned more offspring: Shakespeare's work was in turn adapted as a Broadway musical by Rodgers and Hart in 1938 as The Boys from Syracuse. And in 2001 the Mansaku company of Japan performed The Kyogen of Errors, showing that Shakespearean slapstick was particularly suited to the earthy, comic style of Kyogen.
A similar line of influence of Plautus' play was Carlo Goldoni's 1747 play I due gemelli veneziani ("The two Venetian twins"), which was amongst others adapted and staged as a 1979 Australian two-act musical comedy.
Shakespeare's Twelfth Night also features mistaken twins, the sister dressed as a boy. As the actual father of twins, Shakespeare seems to have been especially interested in twinship.
And, finally, the 1962 musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was based on three other plays by Plautus (specifically Pseudolus, Miles Gloriosus, and Mostellaria); it tells the bawdy story of a slave named Pseudolus and his attempts to win his freedom by helping his young master woo the girl next door.
I have read the translation by E.F. Watling in Penguin Classics (The Pot of Gold and Other Plays).
Full text in English (older translation) at Perseus
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