Goldoni's request for a renewal of Italian comedy finds clear expression in the comedy The Twins of Venice. The use of the motif of doubles is favored by the writers of Commedia dell'Arte scripts.
Disguised characters who are revealed to be siblings by the end of the play, lost children in shipwrecks finding each other through episodes filled with misunderstandings, is based on the fact that the audience knows what the characters do not know at the moment of the misunderstanding; this is the most tested method for European comedy.
However, beyond the ability to develop a plot full of surprises, the motif of similarity has become a classic trick for improvisation by Commedia actors, who were accustomed to playing all the stereotyped roles, familiar from a long-standing tradition, with masks and tricks recognizable to the audience.
In The Twins, Goldoni, as he does elsewhere, removes the tricks and defines a new use of the roles, which, although known from the past, are presented through a new perspective that tends to overturn any preconceived image of the theater formed by contemporary audiences.
The request for renewal of theatrical writing is fulfilled with Goldoni's work; however, it also gives rise to a new demand that theatrical practice must now satisfy.
