The Taming of the Shrew synopsis
By Drew Reeves

Lucentio and his servant, Tranio, arrive in Padua to experience the city’s arts and culture.  Soon after their arrival they witness Baptista Minola, a very rich man, negotiating with suitors for the hand of his youngest daughter, Bianca.  Baptista will not allow Bianca to be married until his oldest daughter, Katherine, is wed, yet Katherine is considered by all to be a ‘shrew’, an ill-tempered woman prone to violence towards others.  Baptista invites the suitors to find tutors for his daughters to help win favor.  Lucentio falls in love with Bianca, and decides to disguise himself as a tutor so he can get closer to her, while Tranio will disguise himself as Lucentio to distract Baptista and negotiate a monetary agreement for the hand of Bianca.

Petruchio arrives with his servant Grumio, seeking to find a wealthy woman to wed.  He goes to his good friend Hortensio, who is one of Bianca’s suitors, and he tells Petruchio of Katherine.  Petruchio agrees to wed Katherine, and Hortensio plans to disguise himself as a tutor so he can get closer to Bianca.

Petruchio meets Katherine and a battle of wit and strong wills ensues.  He tells Baptista he will marry her, and they agree upon the dowry.  Baptista then tells ‘Lucentio’ (the disguised Tranio) that he can marry Bianca if he can prove that his father will assure him of his inheritance.  Tranio decides he has to find someone to pretend to be Lucentio’s father, Vincentio.

Petruchio is late to his agreed upon wedding day, and when he finally arrives, he and his servant are dressed and behave in a very odd manner.  This continues through the wedding, and he finally forcibly takes Kate away before the wedding feast.

Petruchio and Kate arrive at his house in Verona, and he begins treating his servants in the same manner Kate was earlier treating the suitors and him.  For several days, he denies her food, new clothes, and behaves in a very erratic manner.  He finally agrees that they will return to Padua to see her father.  On the road home, Kate disagrees with Petruchio, and she finally begins to understand his behavior.

Meanwhile, back in Padua, Lucentio has revealed who he really is to Bianca, she falls for him, and they secretly marry, which they are able to do because Tranio as ‘Lucentio’ has brought in a fake father ‘Vincentio’.  The real Vincentio arrives with Kate and Petruchio, and all of the deceptions are exposed, but it is too late, Lucentio and Bianca are married.

All then gather for a wedding feast with three married couples (Hortensio has married a wealthy widow who also proves to be a ‘shrew’).  Petruchio bets with the other men that his wife is the most obedient, and Kate wins the bet when she delivers a speech about a woman’s duty to her husband and a man’s duty to his wife.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona Synopsis
From The Pocket Companion to Shakespeare by J C Trewin

Valentine, seeking to be “tutor’d in the world,” goes with his servant Speed from Verona to Milan, saying goodbye to his friend Proteus. Presently, Proteus, enamored to Julia (as she is of him), is also ordered by his father to leave for Milan. There Valentine falls in love with the Duke’s daughter, Silvia; when Proteus arrives they tell him that because the Duke prefers a wealthier suitor, Thurio, they propose to elope.

Proteus, himself infatuated with Silvia, informs the Duke who finds a rope ladder under Valentine’s cloak and banishes him. He becomes the leader of a highly selective band of outlaws. Julia, who has followed Proteus disguised as a boy, hears Thurio’s musicians serenading Silvia with a song. Proteus is listening and after Thurio has gone, he proclaims his love, which Silvia scorns, asking Sir Eglamour to conduct her to Valentine. Proteus, taking the disguised Julia (“Sebastian”) as his page, sends a message to Silvia who again rejects him.

The Duke pursues his escaping daughter and is captured by outlaws while she is rescued by Proteus. The watching Valentine attacks his treachery, then for a moment becomes all too magnanimous by giving up Silvia to him. Julia/Sebastian, swooning, reveals herself, the outlaws bring in the Duke who pardons them, and there is a correct pairing off.

The Comedy of Errors Synopsis
From The Pocket Companion to Shakespeare by J C Trewin

Aegeon, a veteran merchant of Syracuse, is in distress in Ephesus, his town’s implacable enemy. Any Syracusian seen in Ephesus will be executed unless he can pay a ransom of a thousand marks. Aegeon’s goods, at the highest rate, cannot reach a hundred marks. Then why has he risked the penalty? He explains to the Duke (sympathetic, but unable to break the law), that long before, at Epidamnum, where he had gone on business, his wife had borne him twins. Strangely at that same hour and in the same inn, a peasant woman had given birth to indistinguishable twins who Aegeon had bought so that they could attend as slaves upon his sons. But on the way home their vessel was shipwrecked; he was separated from his wife, one of the twins and one of the peasant boys, and heard no more of them. When the other twins where eighteen they asked to go in search of their lost brothers. They did not return, and Aegeon, alone, had spent five years looking for them, coming at last to Ephesus and his apparent fate unless, at the day’s end, he could make up the ransom.

The second scene introduces the wanders who happen to have arrived, unknown to him, at the same time as Aegeon. Very soon, Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse are involved in a furious sequence of misunderstandings and the false identifications with Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus. (Oddly, four people but only two names.) Throughout the piece – which observes the unities of action, time and place – A is always being mistaken for B and C for D. Shakespeare keeps it up with fantastic ingenuity until when the plot seems impossible to disentangle, an abbess emerges from the priory in mid-Ephesus and reunites Aegeon and Aemilia. Within a short scene everything is more or less explained; and the Abbess invites the baffled Duke, “To go with us into the abbey here,/And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes.”