No question in my mind: The Merry Wives of Windsor is Shakespeare's most contemporary play.
I'm being very specific here in my choice of word -- it's "contemporary," not "timeless." This is the exact reason why this year's Stratford production could pick the play up bodily out of the Elizabethan world and drop it down into a 1950s Ontario small town with no real violence done to the play or to any of the characters.
This is so for two reasons. First of all, Shakespeare was writing about his contemporaries, and members of his own social class. With only a few exceptions, the characters in this play all live in and belong in the town where it takes place. They are all middle class, some content with their lot, some upwardly mobile, some who don't really try too hard. Unlike most of the Bard's plays, the characters are not rooted in some faraway mythical land, or some distant time in the more-or-less historic past -- and they certainly are not all noble, royal, or ecclesiastical.
Second, this is a play where the women call all the shots, and where young love triumphs over social convention. The merry trio of Mistresses Ford, Page, and Quickly make ingenious mincemeat out of the men who try to control them or dominate them. And young Anne Page, while not openly defiant, as effectively makes mincemeat out of her parents by cleverly eluding the men they've chosen for her, and marrying the man she has chosen for herself.
Now, all of this may have been planted as a kind of concealed compliment to Elizabeth I, especially if 'tis true -- as has been related -- that she herself had asked for another Falstaff play. Does it matter? Whatever the reasons, the end result has, for me, a strikingly modern air to it.
I think this is why I was not in the least disturbed when archaic usages like "Mistress Page" or "Master Ford" were discarded in this production in favour of the contemporary "Mr." or "Mrs.," when "three hundred pounds" became "thirty thousand dollars," or when other obscure Elizabethan words were replaced with more intelligible modern counterparts. This surgery on the script was done with a caring and light touch, and applied only where clarity truly mattered.
Visually, this production created modern magic on the Festival Theatre's thrust stage. The square floor covering the original stage was itself covered with brilliant green artificial turf. The house at the rear was a classic suburban house of the late 1940s-early 1950s -- red brick below, imitation half-timbering and balcony above, gabled roof, and a slightly arched front door with a stone surround and a narrow leaded-glass window in the middle of the door. Houses like this can still be seen by the dozen -- by the thousands, really -- in cities and towns all over North America.
The real magic began when the house's two side wings were pulled off and pivoted around, while the lower-floor wall vanished to allow other set pieces to come through. In this way, the street scene outside Page's home readily turned into the Garter Inn, the meadow where the duel scene is fought, and others. The biggest transformation came with the final scene at Herne's Oak, where the upper part of the house vanished behind cobwebby Halloween draperies.
The costumes, too, made me feel right at home -- back in the era when women wore dresses, heels, and makeup everywhere and hats whenever out of the house. No question in my mind: designer Julie Fox totally nailed the look of my childhood world, complete to the period laundry basket with its quilted coloured finish. I felt instantly at home.
Visually, this production created modern magic on the Festival Theatre's thrust stage. The square floor covering the original stage was itself covered with brilliant green artificial turf. The house at the rear was a classic suburban house of the late 1940s-early 1950s -- red brick below, imitation half-timbering and balcony above, gabled roof, and a slightly arched front door with a stone surround and a narrow leaded-glass window in the middle of the door. Houses like this can still be seen by the dozen -- by the thousands, really -- in cities and towns all over North America.
The real magic began when the house's two side wings were pulled off and pivoted around, while the lower-floor wall vanished to allow other set pieces to come through. In this way, the street scene outside Page's home readily turned into the Garter Inn, the meadow where the duel scene is fought, and others. The biggest transformation came with the final scene at Herne's Oak, where the upper part of the house vanished behind cobwebby Halloween draperies.
The costumes, too, made me feel right at home -- back in the era when women wore dresses, heels, and makeup everywhere and hats whenever out of the house. No question in my mind: designer Julie Fox totally nailed the look of my childhood world, complete to the period laundry basket with its quilted coloured finish. I felt instantly at home.
As to the performance, the Festival's Artistic Director, Antoni Cimolino, has helmed a staging which glories in the rowdy, bawdy humour of the language while also honouring the humanity and -- in the end -- humility of most of the characters. Most importantly, he has reined in much of the physical and vocal excess which can so quickly make the play become unfunny (but not all -- see below).
Insofar as The Merry Wives of Windsor has a star character, that character is the wannabe womanizer, Sir John Falstaff. Although a far more two-dimensional character here than the brawling, wenching braggart of the Henry plays, this Falstaff still poses intriguing physical challenges for the actor who -- almost invariably -- has to wear a sizable "fat suit" under his voluminous costume.
Geraint Wyn Davies proved to be more comfortable with that physicality than several Falstaffs I've seen in the past. Vocally, too, his performance was clearer and surer than some other roles in which I've seen him, relying more on clarity of diction and well-thought phrasing than on sheer volume. As a result, some of Falstaff's most treasurable lines reached the audience with absolute clarity and earned the laughter they deserve -- including my own personal favourite, "Heaven defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese."
The real touchstone of Davies' assumption of the character came at the point when the various fairies and goblins revealed their identity as Windsor townsfolk, and he said, "I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass." Rueful recognition steeped in a kind of chastened wonderment coloured his voice at this moment.
The other real star of the production is the tripartite confederacy of Mistress Page, Mistress Ford, and Mistress Quickly -- here played respectively by Brigit Wilson, Sophia Walker, and Lucy Peacock. And what a trio they made! For this play to work, these three roles require, no, demand, a strong mercurial streak of mischief in the portrayals of these three central women. All three captured that essential mischievous glint in the eye, and with it the energy which makes their plotting and scheming so hilarious.
Fine moments abounded in all three roles. Peacock proved once again her adroit manipulation of endless strings of words in her lengthy and totally fictitious description of all the men who have vainly courted Mistress Ford. Walker married seductiveness, energy, and fear in perfect proportion in her second bedroom scene with Falstaff. Wilson gave a subtle air of mystery to her recital of the tale of Herne the Hunter, aided by an appropriately creepy shift in the lighting plot.
For the first time ever, I actually felt sorry for Master Ford, the man who fears the unfaithfulness of his wife. Too often, this character is portrayed as a walking cartoon of childish petulance. Graham Abbey gave Ford a surprisingly humane and likable aspect, not least because he built the character's anguish slowly, by degrees, through the "cuckold" soliloquy. As Ford's fear and madness alike grow on him, Abbey reached the peak of his rage at just the right moment -- and in just the right amount. Until this show, I'd almost given up hope of ever seeing a believable and likable Master Ford.
Michael Blake did fine work in creating a supremely self-assured Master Page, his great satisfaction with himself totally explaining why he did not fear the fate that obsesses Ford. Impressive, given that Page often becomes a rather two-dimensional adjunct to the main action in Ford's house.
Shruti Kothari treated the small role of Anne Page to a straightforward interpretation. But she had one surprisingly effective acid moment in an otherwise sweet personality -- when she said, to the audience, "This is my father's choice. / Oh, what a world of vile ill-favor'd faults / looks handsome in thirty thousand dollars a year!"
Equally straightforward were two other small roles: Fenton, the suitor who wins Anne's hand (Mike Shara) and Rugby, the nervous servant of Doctor Caius (Johnathon Sousa).
The trio of Falstaff's followers presented uncommonly differentiated characters. If David Collins (Bardolph) and Randy Hughson (Pistol) resembled the rogues of previous stagings, Farhang Ghajar took Nym in a wildly different direction as a typical Fifties "greaser." Incidentally, Hughson was the one actor I sometimes had trouble hearing -- an unusual situation with him.
Michael Spencer-Davis made much of the role of Justice Shallow, not restricting himself simply to being a man with a grievance.
Jamie Mac's take on Slender was appropriately shaped as a book-learned social klutz.
A prize comic gem of the evening was Josue Laboucane's uncommonly energetic and entertaining portrayal of Peter Simple.
For nailing the physicality to perfection, you couldn't beat the antics of servants John and Robert, trying to hoist the laundry basket with Falstaff in it. John Kirkpatrick and Daniel Krmpotic gave two of the funniest comic cameos I've seen in many a year.
As a study in comedic restraint versus comic overkill, a textbook comparison can be seen by looking at the two great caricatures of foreigners in the play: Sir Hugh Evans, the Welsh parson, and Doctor Caius, the French surgeon.
Ben Carlson gave Parson Evans a nicely balanced portrayal, making the most of the numerous comical errors in his grammar and construction, but not overdoing the Welsh accent. Carlson's usual sterling diction and delivery aided this part immensely.
Gordon S. Miller, on the other hand, gave the most overblown performance of Doctor Caius that I have ever seen -- and I've seen quite a few. Like Parson Evans, this is a character which lends itself readily to excess, but the excess here became overplus and quickly moved from there to not-very-funny. This was partly a matter of far overdoing the accent, and partly a matter of turning almost every beat into an exaggerated pose. This was one serious lapse in an otherwise excellent production.
The other was the recourse to outdoor toilet humour with not one, but two, scenes revolving around multiple physical pratfalls involving meadow muffins (animal feces, for those not familiar with the slang term). Once was funny (toilet humour almost always is). Twice was less so. By the third pratfall, it was getting tiresome. Did the same sight gag really need to be dragged out again in a later scene?
One other aspect of the show deserves positive mention: the team of townspeople, mostly children, whose foreground games and activities helped to bridge the gap between scenes while the wings of the house were being turned and set pieces whisked on and off behind them.
The Merry Wives of Windsor is a classic comedy in the sense that it invites us to laugh at the foibles and pratfalls of the people on stage while also nudging us to recognize elements of ourselves in them. Antoni Cimolino's staging of the play at Stratford serves both of those ends equally well. I laughed throughout the show, and at the end I left with a smile on my face at my own inward reflections.
Insofar as The Merry Wives of Windsor has a star character, that character is the wannabe womanizer, Sir John Falstaff. Although a far more two-dimensional character here than the brawling, wenching braggart of the Henry plays, this Falstaff still poses intriguing physical challenges for the actor who -- almost invariably -- has to wear a sizable "fat suit" under his voluminous costume.
Geraint Wyn Davies proved to be more comfortable with that physicality than several Falstaffs I've seen in the past. Vocally, too, his performance was clearer and surer than some other roles in which I've seen him, relying more on clarity of diction and well-thought phrasing than on sheer volume. As a result, some of Falstaff's most treasurable lines reached the audience with absolute clarity and earned the laughter they deserve -- including my own personal favourite, "Heaven defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese."
The real touchstone of Davies' assumption of the character came at the point when the various fairies and goblins revealed their identity as Windsor townsfolk, and he said, "I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass." Rueful recognition steeped in a kind of chastened wonderment coloured his voice at this moment.
The other real star of the production is the tripartite confederacy of Mistress Page, Mistress Ford, and Mistress Quickly -- here played respectively by Brigit Wilson, Sophia Walker, and Lucy Peacock. And what a trio they made! For this play to work, these three roles require, no, demand, a strong mercurial streak of mischief in the portrayals of these three central women. All three captured that essential mischievous glint in the eye, and with it the energy which makes their plotting and scheming so hilarious.
Fine moments abounded in all three roles. Peacock proved once again her adroit manipulation of endless strings of words in her lengthy and totally fictitious description of all the men who have vainly courted Mistress Ford. Walker married seductiveness, energy, and fear in perfect proportion in her second bedroom scene with Falstaff. Wilson gave a subtle air of mystery to her recital of the tale of Herne the Hunter, aided by an appropriately creepy shift in the lighting plot.
For the first time ever, I actually felt sorry for Master Ford, the man who fears the unfaithfulness of his wife. Too often, this character is portrayed as a walking cartoon of childish petulance. Graham Abbey gave Ford a surprisingly humane and likable aspect, not least because he built the character's anguish slowly, by degrees, through the "cuckold" soliloquy. As Ford's fear and madness alike grow on him, Abbey reached the peak of his rage at just the right moment -- and in just the right amount. Until this show, I'd almost given up hope of ever seeing a believable and likable Master Ford.
Michael Blake did fine work in creating a supremely self-assured Master Page, his great satisfaction with himself totally explaining why he did not fear the fate that obsesses Ford. Impressive, given that Page often becomes a rather two-dimensional adjunct to the main action in Ford's house.
Shruti Kothari treated the small role of Anne Page to a straightforward interpretation. But she had one surprisingly effective acid moment in an otherwise sweet personality -- when she said, to the audience, "This is my father's choice. / Oh, what a world of vile ill-favor'd faults / looks handsome in thirty thousand dollars a year!"
Equally straightforward were two other small roles: Fenton, the suitor who wins Anne's hand (Mike Shara) and Rugby, the nervous servant of Doctor Caius (Johnathon Sousa).
The trio of Falstaff's followers presented uncommonly differentiated characters. If David Collins (Bardolph) and Randy Hughson (Pistol) resembled the rogues of previous stagings, Farhang Ghajar took Nym in a wildly different direction as a typical Fifties "greaser." Incidentally, Hughson was the one actor I sometimes had trouble hearing -- an unusual situation with him.
Michael Spencer-Davis made much of the role of Justice Shallow, not restricting himself simply to being a man with a grievance.
Jamie Mac's take on Slender was appropriately shaped as a book-learned social klutz.
A prize comic gem of the evening was Josue Laboucane's uncommonly energetic and entertaining portrayal of Peter Simple.
For nailing the physicality to perfection, you couldn't beat the antics of servants John and Robert, trying to hoist the laundry basket with Falstaff in it. John Kirkpatrick and Daniel Krmpotic gave two of the funniest comic cameos I've seen in many a year.
As a study in comedic restraint versus comic overkill, a textbook comparison can be seen by looking at the two great caricatures of foreigners in the play: Sir Hugh Evans, the Welsh parson, and Doctor Caius, the French surgeon.
Ben Carlson gave Parson Evans a nicely balanced portrayal, making the most of the numerous comical errors in his grammar and construction, but not overdoing the Welsh accent. Carlson's usual sterling diction and delivery aided this part immensely.
Gordon S. Miller, on the other hand, gave the most overblown performance of Doctor Caius that I have ever seen -- and I've seen quite a few. Like Parson Evans, this is a character which lends itself readily to excess, but the excess here became overplus and quickly moved from there to not-very-funny. This was partly a matter of far overdoing the accent, and partly a matter of turning almost every beat into an exaggerated pose. This was one serious lapse in an otherwise excellent production.
The other was the recourse to outdoor toilet humour with not one, but two, scenes revolving around multiple physical pratfalls involving meadow muffins (animal feces, for those not familiar with the slang term). Once was funny (toilet humour almost always is). Twice was less so. By the third pratfall, it was getting tiresome. Did the same sight gag really need to be dragged out again in a later scene?
One other aspect of the show deserves positive mention: the team of townspeople, mostly children, whose foreground games and activities helped to bridge the gap between scenes while the wings of the house were being turned and set pieces whisked on and off behind them.
The Merry Wives of Windsor is a classic comedy in the sense that it invites us to laugh at the foibles and pratfalls of the people on stage while also nudging us to recognize elements of ourselves in them. Antoni Cimolino's staging of the play at Stratford serves both of those ends equally well. I laughed throughout the show, and at the end I left with a smile on my face at my own inward reflections.
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