A changeling is a fickle person, a waverer, a person posing as another person, or an idiot. The Changeling portrays them all. The play interchanges not only characters, but authors, too. Written in 1622, it is one of the most successful collaborations in the history of the theater.

Two plots, each the work of one playwright, interweave and collide. Words, lines, episodes, and scenes mix double meanings. Rowley's tragic plot combines hypocricy and love. Middleton's comic plot mixes madness and educated fools. Deceits tie things together, suspicions tear them apart.