“FIE ON SINFUL FANTASY! FIE ON LUST AND LUXURY!”

A Review of The Merry Wives of Windsor as produced by
The Illinois Shakespeare Festival

by James L. Seay

Most Shakespearean scholars and most theatrical critics, myself included (I will not even attempt to place myself amid Shakespearean scholars!), feel that The Merry Wives of Windsor is one of Shakespeare’s weakest plays. Consequently, it is one that is seldom produced today, and, consequently, I was a bit surprised when the Illinois Shakespeare Festival decided to include it in their 2011 Festival selections. Yet, they did, and I was a bit apprehensive when I traveled to Bloomington’s Ewing Manor to review Director Catherine Weidner’s take on this B List play of the Bard’s.

The Merry Wives is interesting, however, as it is Shakespeare’s only play dealing exclusively with the contemporary Elizabethan English middle class. The play’s major themes of love, marriage, jealousy and revenge, presented through irony, sexual innuendo, and sarcasm, along with a good dose of stereotyping, perhaps make this play a view something closer to our modern day than any of Shakespeare’s others. Yet, it is difficult, for me at least, not to accept the Falstaff of Merry Wives as so inferior to the Falstaff of the two Henry IV plays that it begs the question, why would Shakespeare stumble with one of his greatest creations? Why, hell – St. Louis brewer “Papa Joe” Griesedieck even named a popular beer after him!

The reason seems to be (although it cannot be proved) that the play was written in a hurry for a specific occasion. Many scholars think this occasion might have been The Garter Feast on April 23, 1597, with Queen Elizabeth I in attendance, and, possibly, Shakespear may have knocked off the play in as little as a fortnight. There is also a legend that Elizabeth I, who loved the theatre and was one of Shakespeare’s strongest supporters, had become enamored with the character of Falstaff and specifically requested Shakespeare to write an entire play around “the fat knight in love.” This would explain the strong female characters in the play as well as the low humor and broad slapstick surrounding Falstaff’s constant misadventures in the play.

By placing the action of the play in the Twenties, director Weidner managed to make the most of the physical humor and broad slapstick of the play to the point where I once thought, during the production, “It’s Shakespeare by Keystone Studios!” Indeed, the chases and physical humor of the production would have made Mack Sennett smile. And it worked brilliantly. While producing a Shakespearian play in modern (or at least nearly modern) dress is nothing new, I had yet to see The Merry Wives done in anything but Elizabethan costuming. By bringing the story into the Roaring Twenties, the low comedy, stylized over-acting and chases seemed perfectly in context and one of Shakespeare’s weakest comedies now became a true hoot!

Another theme popular with the bawdy Elizabethan audiences (and with bawdy contemporary audiences as well) is the idea of the cuckold. The Elizabethans seemed to find the idea of a wife cheating on her husband to be down right hilarious. Because a cuckolded husband is said to “wear horns,” any reference, no matter how oblique, to horns or horned animals would bring down the house. It apparently still does. Actor’s Equity Association member Kareem Bandealy’s Master Ford is a delightful jealous and assumed cuckold husband. Bandealy and Gerson Dacanay, as the wildly stereotypic Frenchman, Dr. Caius, kept the audience howling with laughter.

Demetria Thomas as Mistress Ford, Kathy Logelin as Mistress Page and Magdalyn Donnelly as Mistress Quickly and Anne, Mistress Page’s daughter (Katrina Kuntz) all became the archetypical designing women, bent on winning the battle of the sexes by taking truly imaginative revenge on poor Sir John Falstaff (George Judy). Judy’s Falstaff should be thankful that Joseph Griesedieck named a beer after him, as he got no respect, otherwise. Yet Judy managed, in spite of Falstaff’s amorality, to get us all feeling that he didn’t really deserve all the abuse he got. We were all happy when at the end, totally embarrassed and shamed, Falstaff was still able to walk away with Mistress Quickly, patting her on the butt as he did.

The play centers around class prejudices of middle class England, and the supporting cast did well in developing this particular theme. The lower class is represented by characters such as Falstaff’s buddies, Brandolph (Chris Amos), Nym (Steve Wojtas) and Pistol (David Marcotte), while the upper class is represented, aside from Falstaff, himself, by Master Fenton (Benjamin Cole), Justice Shallow (David Sitler), Parson Evans (Brian Rooney) Master Page (Patrick New) and Slender (Drew Vidal). The servant class is represented by Falstaff’s page Robin (Nathan Stark), Slender’s servant, Simple (Max Ganet), Dr. Caius’ servant, Rugby (Kyle Cameron), John (Nick Dargis) and Robert (Ken Mooney), both servants to Ford. Shakespeare uses both Latin and misused English to represent the class attitudes and differences of the people of his era, and much of the comedic effect of the play comes from the misunderstandings between the characters of these various classes.

In a way, The Illinois Shakespeare Festival’s production of The Merry Wives of Windsor acts as a perfect counterpoint to their earlier The Tempest, allowing the audience to examine two examples of totally different Shakespearian comedies. However, it is perfectly able to stand on its own as a delightful evening of slapstick. The Merry Wives will continue to play at Bloomington, Illinois’ Ewing Manor July 21, 24, 27, 30 and August 4 and 7. Except for Sundays (when the curtain time is 7:30 p.m.), all curtain times are 8:00 p.m. However, you will want to come at least an hour early to enjoy some very cool contemporary jazz by Glenn Wilson & Friends outdoors in the courtyard, where you can also enjoy a picnic while listening to the jazz. The whole thing becomes a truly elegant evening of music and theatre under the stars. Don’t miss it.

For ticket reservations and other information, call the Box Office at (309) 438-2535 or, if you are out of state, (866) ILL-SHAKE.