ANGOOR IN RELATION TO THE PLAY: THE COMEDY OF ERRORS BY

SHAKESPEARE

William Shakespeare has remained pivotal in the entertainment industry, with his plays
becoming the foundation for many adaptations and derivative dramas and literary works. His
works have transgressed the boundaries of location and time, as his stories do not remain
confined to the Elizabethan era of England. Shakespeare’s plays have received attention from
renowned Indian filmmakers, from Manu Sen’s Bhranti Bilas in 1963 to Vishal Bhardwaj’s
Haider in more recent times. The 1963 Bengali comedy film Bhranti Bilas was an adaptation of
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s play of the same name, which was itself inspired by Shakespeare’s
The Comedy of Errors. It was only after the film was remade in Hindi as 1968’s Do Dooni Char
that Shakespeare’s play was revisited by Gulzar in his wildly successful Angoor.

At first glance, the plot of Angoor seems to follow the trope of identical twins separated when
young, and subsequently finding each other one way or the other, presumably by divine
intervention. A closer look will, however, reveal that the storyline has been modified to be more
palatable for the Indian audience.

Angoor begins with a cheeky toast to the genius of Shakespeare, thus acknowledging the
contribution of his The Comedy of Errors to the plot of the movie. The film introduces the two
twins travelling with their parents. Their father, Raj Tilak, an eccentric man names by bizarre
reasoning both of his sons Ashok and does the same to another set of twins abandoned by their
mother in the inn they made a stop at, naming them Bahadur. The six characters are met with a
dire situation when they are shipwrecked and separated, eventually growing up in different
towns. Ashok and Bahadur from Dinkapur, travel to another town which coincidently happens to
be their brothers’. It is right after when they step foot into the town that madness ensues, a
madness brought forth by mistaken identities which is the central theme of Shakespeare’s much
adored play of The Comedy of Errors.

The film Angoor makes several digressions from the original storyline of the play; taking
generous creative liberty to tweak certain characters to have a life of their own. The character of
Egeon, for instance, who plays an important role till the end of the play, is killed off rather
unceremoniously and abruptly after the shipwreck. The Syracusean Ashok, so to speak, a man of
eccentric spirit himself, is an avid reader of Hindi crime thriller novels and is a highly suspicious
individual. In The Comedy of Errors, Egeon mentions to the Duke of Ephesus, that his younger
son went out in search for his older twin after the age of eighteen. In Angoor, however, the
Ashok from Dinkapur seems to remain oblivious of his brother’s existence until he finally comes
face to face with him towards the end of the movie. The other Ashok, on the other hand, is first
shown to be playing cards with his overbearing wife, Sudha and his sister-in-law, Tanu. There is
no equivalent of this scene in the play itself, and appears to be added to establish the dynamics
between the three characters. The Syracusean Ashok’s courting of Tanu, the Bollywood
counterpart of Luciana is not as overt as in the play. One of the major changes in the film
adaptation is the scene where the mistaken pair of Ashok and Bahadur devise a plan to drug the
characters of Sudha, Tanu and Prema in order to escape unnoticed, ultimately ending up
drugging themselves in the process. The minor character of Alka remains unexplained; other
than being a source of jealousy for Sudha, she seems to be introduced only as an after-thought to
steer the action of the film.

It is not just the plot that has been modified, but the cultural aspects and language also been
adapted to be better suitable for the Indian audience. The film recontextualises the events of the
play within Indian society. As the audience could hardly relate to the Elizabethan trends of the
time during the play’s production, certain changes have been made to make the panning out of
the events plausible, thus, relocating the action and contemporizing the interaction between the
characters and their environment. This was done by renaming the characters as well as their
immediate surroundings, and accordingly, Antipholus becomes Ashok; Dromio becomes
Bahadur; the Centaur becomes Imperial Hotel, and so on. Shakespeare’s wit is captured by
Gulzar’s incorporation of the local languages of Hindu and Urdu, with the characters using
native innuendos and metaphors.

Angoor, nonetheless, does not dispose of several occasions and characters which make the
original play so endearing to audiences across generations; the film takes care to compellingly
illustrate the theme of mistaken identities, the dominance of the master over his slave and the
impudence and jealousy of the wife. The scene where the Ephesian Bahadur catches his
supposed master smoking is especially important as it is reminiscent of the explosive exchange
between the characters in the play where the Ephesian Dromio implores the Syracusean
Antipholus to return home with him. The recurring device of the necklace which helps in the
movement of action in the play also appears in Angoor and becomes the source of much
confusion.

Keeping in mind the nature of the medium of films, it is expected that it is different from the live
action drama onstage due to time constraints and the target demographic to be kept in mind.
Gulzar’s Angoor has the same energy as the play as there is much of the same elements of
melodrama and farce; and what remains the same is the essence of the play which endeavours to
entertain above all else.
Works referenced:

- Shakespeare, William. The Comedy of Errors.

- Kidnie, Margaret Jane. Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation.
- Harris, Jonathan Gil. The Bard in Bollywood.
<https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/shakespeare-in-
bollywood/article8510082.ece>