Assuming that it was produced at the Lenaea or City Dionysia, Samia will have been performed in the Theatre of Dionysus as reconstructed in stone during the administration of Lycurgus (c.336–324). The basic elements of the theatre environment – the ‘dancing-place’ (orchestra) in which the chorus performed, but which could also be used by the actors; side-passages (eisodoi, later parodoi) for entrances from, and exits towards, places at a distance; and a building at the back (still called ‘booth’, skene, despite being now a permanent and imposing edifice with a columniated front and projecting wings) representing up to three houses or other interior spaces that played a role in the action – were much the same as they had been for a century before him. In Samia, as in many other Menandrian comedies, only two of the three skene doors are in use – doubtless the two lateral doors, one representing the entrance to the house of Demeas, the other to that of Nikeratos.

All Menander's plays, so far as we know, can be performed, if necessary, by three actors, provided that it was considered acceptable for the same role to be played by different actors in different scenes – and we know that this sometimes was acceptable in the Athenian theatre, for it is necessary in at least one tragic drama – Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, produced posthumously in 401 bc. And there are passages which look as though they were written specifically to give time for an actor to change mask and costume before appearing in another role. Moschion's monologue before his final exit in Act I (only eight lines survive, 88–95, but it is likely to have been considerably longer) enables the actors who have exited (into the skene) as Chrysis and Parmenon to change and re-enter (via an eisodos) as Demeas and Nikeratos; and in Act V, Parmenon's not very well motivated departure at 694 will enable the actor to change and reappear as Nikeratos at 713.

That Menander's drama, and New Comedy generally, owes much to fifth-century tragedy, especially Euripides, was already recognized in antiquity (cf. Satyrus POxy 1176 fr. 39 col. 7); indeed, according to Quintilian (10.1.69), it was recognized openly by Menander himself, who ‘both greatly admired [Euripides], as he often testifies, and followed his lead, though in a different genre’. In modern times it has often been observed that many of Menander's plays have strong intertextual links with particular tragedies, and in the case of Samia a close relationship has long been observed with Euripides’ Hippolytus, with Demeas, Moschion and Chrysis corresponding to Theseus, Hippolytus and Phaedra respectively. In both plays a quick-tempered father, returning from abroad, wrongly comes to believe that in his absence his son (a bastard son in one case, an adopted son in the other) has slept with his (the father's) wife or concubine. In both plays the son is proud of his virtuous character. In both, owing partly to deception, partly to the father's ‘over-confidence in his own reasoning’ (S. R. West 1991: 18), the situation develops in such a way that the son finds it impossible to convince his father that his suspicions are groundless. Many detailed parallels can also be perceived, most notably between the father-son confrontations in Samia 452–538 and Hippolytus 902–1101. Since Samia is a comedy, the truth naturally comes out in time to prevent any truly evil consequences, and several other features of the Euripidean play undergo inversion. The Hippolytus and Phaedra figures – Moschion and Chrysis – are at no time hostile to one another; in fact they are allies in a scheme to deceive Demeas, and Moschion intensifies Demeas’ suspicions of himself by speaking in defence of Chrysis (453–75). Hippolytus is falsely accused of rape; Moschion is really guilty of it, but is never suspected (in regard to Plangon, that is) until he confesses.

One of the series of mosaics, probably of the fourth century ad, discovered in the early 1960s in the so-called House of the Menander at Mytilene on Lesbos (Charitonides et al. 1970: 38–41 and pl. 4.1) declares itself to be a representation of Act III of Samia (Σαμίας μέ(ρος) Γ) and labels the characters, from left to right, as Μάγειρος‚ Δημέας and Χρυσίς. The scene illustrated is that of the expulsion of Chrysis from Demeas’ house (369–83). Demeas (white-haired, white-bearded, and wearing a long, belted, sleeved robe), is advancing towards Chrysis, with his right arm outstretched and his stick raised threateningly in the other hand; his mouth is open. Chrysis, who is holding the baby, is very richly dressed: both her long inner garment, and her shorter outer one, are multi-coloured, her hair is elaborately styled, and she appears to be wearing a tiara and a necklace. She looks slightly towards Demeas as he speaks to her. The Cook, who is a black man (283–390n.) and has something of a pot belly, wears a brown outer garment cut very short and, it would appear, trousers; he is watching and listening intently, and perhaps thinking of intervening (his left foot is turned towards Demeas and Chrysis), but has not yet done so. If one particular moment is represented, it may be 382–3, when Demeas for the third time orders Chrysis to go away (ἐκ τῆς οἰκίας ἄπιθι) and the Cook is on the point of resolving to go up to him (προσιτέον) and protest.

Although only about half of the first two acts has survived, the essentials of the action can be reconstructed with very little uncertainty, not least because in the early part of the play the action appears to have been rather slow-moving.

Demeas, a wealthy, unmarried Athenian, adopted Moschion as his son when Moschion was a young child (cf. 7–9) and brought him up in affluence (13–16). After Moschion had grown up, Demeas, by then fairly advanced in years, fell in love with a hetaira from Samos named Chrysis, and Moschion encouraged him to take her into his house (19–28).

Moschion himself fell in love with Plangon, the daughter and only child of Nikeratos, Demeas’ much poorer neighbour. Apparently, however, he at first took no steps to seek her hand in marriage, possibly because he was afraid his father would object to his choosing a bride who would bring little or nothing by way of dowry. Then Demeas and Nikeratos went away together on a long business trip to the Black Sea region – which ruled out any possibility of marriage until such time as they returned. Plangon's mother and Chrysis struck up a friendship (35–8), which led to their holding an all-night women's party together at Demeas’ and Moschion's house for the festival of the Adonia (38–46) – during which Moschion raped Plangon (see ) with the result that she became pregnant (47–50). He immediately went to see Plangon's mother and made a sworn promise to marry her when her father returned (53n.).

Adoptive father and adopted son

As soon as the Bodmer papyrus made it possible to view and understand Samia more or less as a whole, it was quickly perceived (Treu 1969; Mette 1969; Jacques 1971: xxviii–xli; Lloyd-Jones 1972) that the relationship between Moschion and Demeas was a crucial feature, perhaps the crucial feature, of the play, even though it is rather rare for them to be on stage together. A major determinant of Moschion's actions, evident from the prologue on, is his awareness of how much he owes to his adoptive father, and his sense of shame at having acted in a way that would lower him in his father's estimation. An even stronger determinant of Demeas’ actions is his desire to believe the best of his son if at all possible, to avoid quarrelling with him, and to avoid doing anything that might injure his reputation. In Act II this leads Demeas to condone Chrysis’ apparent offence against him (in rearing ‘her’ baby instead of exposing it, 132n.), contrary to his original intentions, when Moschion urges him to, and then to put pressure on a reluctant Nikeratos to have Moschion and Plangon married that very day; in Act III it leads him to expel Chrysis from his house on the mere presumption that Moschion, being a person of good character, could not have committed a serious sexual wrong, and also to avoid telling her the real reason for her expulsion; in Act IV, and again in Act V, it leads him to apologize (537–8, 702–3) for an ‘injustice’ that was at least as much Moschion's fault as his own.

The text of Samia depends mainly on the two sources mentioned in the previous section.

Samia was the first of the three plays contained in the Bodmer codex (B), known for this play as PBodm 25, a papyrus book of the late third or early fourth century ad (published with photographs by Kasser and Austin 1969). The codex is damaged at beginning and end, and it can be estimated (Arnott 1999) that up to line 253 (from which point onwards every line of B’s text of the play survives at least in part) something like 160 lines are missing from B and not supplied by C (not counting the space, equivalent to about five or six lines, that would have been occupied by the breaks at the end of Acts I and II, including the word χοροῦ); in other words, the complete text of the play was just under 900 lines in length – not much shorter than Dyskolos (969) once allowance is made for Samia’s higher proportion of tetrameters.

The Cairo codex (C; PCair J43227; republished photographically by Koenen et al. 1978) was written, again on papyrus, in the fifth century and taken apart in the sixth, its leaves being used by its then owner, Flavius Dioscorus, to cover important documents kept in an amphora. Those which survive contain portions of Epitrepontes, Heros, Perikeiromene, Samia, the Fabula Incerta, and Eupolis’ Demes; when the codex was intact, it almost certainly contained one or more other plays as well. From Samia C preserves most of Act III (216–416) and a section straddling Acts IV and V (547–686); in many passages the text is badly abraded and very hard to read.