"... a frothy, boisterous romp"

July 22, 2006 performance reviewed by Frances Benn Hall.

"Merry Wives of Windsor" is having a frothy, boisterous romp across the stage of Shakespeare and Company's Founders' stage where it can be seen and delighted in for the rest of the season.

Costumed extravagantly and ingeniously, opened with a joyous, romping dance and ending with a woodland extravaganza involving a throned queen, fairies, and a horned, cuckolded Falstaff (reminiscent of the bewitched Bottom in "A Midsummer Night's Dream"), this production swirls merrily through the farce that all the characters seem determined to make of their lives.

Merry Wives of Windsor cast
Photo: Kevin Sprague

The play tangles with plots, sub-plots and go-betweens, but manages by the last act to untangle them to the dismay of the un-heroic hero, Falsaff, who, regrettably bears little resemblance to the lovable rogue who was once a cohort of Prince Hal.

In this play (supposed to have been dashed off by Shakespeare in a few weeks to please Queen Bess who asked for more of the jolly rogue), Falstaff, out of funds and imagining that two Windsor women, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, have given him the leery eye and being wives of rich husbands, could be lucrative wooing objects, sends each a duplicate letter.

The wives pretend to take his letters seriously. This leads to Falstaff getting mixed up with the laundry, crammed into a basket and dumped in the Thames, his being pursued by Ford, an insanely jealous husband who gets entangled in his own disguising cape, his humiliating beating when he attempts an escape dressed as a woman, and at last his total debasement at night in Windsor Park disguised as a horned hunter and whirled about and unfrocked in a mad fairy world surmounted by the Virgin Queen on her throne.

Supported by marvelous music, this tangled tale also includes a sub plot of two romantic young lovers, Page's daughter Anne and Fenton, an impecunious but charming and ardent gentleman, kept apart til the play's end by the problem that each of Anne's parents has chosen for her and is abetting another suitor for her hand.

Central to all this snarled web of robust intrigue is Falstaff, of course, admirably played by Malcolm Ingram, whose astonishing girth he handles with agility and who despite one humiliating defeat after another keeps coming back for more. (Ingram in this summer's repertory also appears in "Enchanted April;" there the character he gives us, the slim, up-tight British husband, is so totally different one must consult programs to make sure one has the same actor.)

As Falstaff he is the star of Merry Wives, and deserves to be.

However a couple of other Shakespeare and Co. veterans vie to out-falstaff Falstaff. Michael Hammond as the inept, disguised, jealous husband of Mistress Ford, (one feels without meaning to ) steals every scene in which he appears. Over the years he has shown his remarkable skills and virtuosity, but in this play out-does himself.

Elizabeth Aspendeider
Photo: Kevin Sprague

And close on his heels is Elizabeth Aspenlieder as his wife. From her first entrance, down an aisle, she is awhirl every moment she is on stage. She never seems to walk, but skate-dances through the role. Delightfully pretty, her every movement and facial reactions are joyously zany. She believes, as does her cohort, Page's wife, that wives can have their merry-making deceits and still be faithful to their husbands.

Other Shakespeare and Co. veteran actors are close on the heels of these three; Corinna May as Page's wife abets every move of Ford's wife, conniving beautifully with her , and has her own agenda for the marrying off of her daughter Anne.

Elizabeth Ingram as housekeeper to Dr. Caius, (Jonathan Croy, a hilarious Frenchman who is an unsuitable suitor to Anne Page) is a general go-between, tangling in every tangled plot in this tangled play. For her gossipy services she gets to play the Virgin Queen in the fantastic, Joycean night-town world that ends the play. Both she and Croy perform admirably.

Katie Zaffrann and Ryan Winkles, in small roles as the romantic young lovers who end up together eloping in the mad-house world of the play, are the only "real" characters in the play. Both are earnest and charming.

As a play, Merry Wives is considered by most theatre critics to be Shakespeare's worst one, dashed off, maybe to please his Queen. (Many years ago, when I took a Shakespeare class with W. H. Auden at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan, he replaced his two hour scheduled lecture on Merry Wives with an invitation to listen to the only good thing to have come out of the play. He set up his portable phonograph on the stage and for two hours we listened to Verdi's opera.)

Merry Wives lacks Shakespeare's wonderful ways with words, his poetry, which usually in his comedies and farces is still there. There are few quotable lines but there are wonderful moments. As written, the opening scene is hard to wade through, and even when staged it tends to slow the pace of the play with a group of zany characters, all minor except for Falstaff, speaking in varied accents and hard to sort out at best.

Director Tony Simotes has compensated for this awkward scene by opening his play with the marvelous robust dance that sets the mood he wants, but even then, the first dialog scene slows the play's beginning. However, once it is over the play can take off .

And if as a play this is not Shakespeare at his finest, Merry Wives as a production can be a joyous delight.

The current production at the Founders is that kind of production. They decided to out-Shakespeare Shakespeare and are doing so. Theatre people know good theatre and are not to be deterred by bookish critics. And we are lucky they are not. For three hours of admirable acting, directing, a trip to the Founders to see what fun this seasoned group has made of Shakespeare's problematic play is more than well worth it. Enjoy.

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