LOST IN TRANSLATION

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
A Production of The Theater At Monmouth in association with Penobscot Theatre
Directed by Bill Van Horn; written by William Shakespeare
With: Dennis Price, Dustin Tucker, Jeri Pitcher, Frank Omar, Kathleen Nation, Alice Cutler, Maria Kelly, and Kevin Hoffmann
At Penobscot Theatre in Bangor, Maine
From January 19 to January 20, 2005

Reviewed by Laurie Meunier Graves

For directors, the urge to fiddle with the Bard can be nearly irresistible. After all, Shakespeare has been done and done and done until it hardly seems as though anything new can be squeezed out of his plays. The solution? Why not set The Merchant of Venice in Nazi Germany? (The Merchant of Venice has been performed this way so many times that the device seems almost as old as Shakespeare.) Why not set The Twelfth Night in an Arabian Nights sort of land? Or The Merry Wives of Windsor on Coney Island in the 1950s?

The Theatre At Monmouth, in association with Penobscot Theatre, decided to go with the Coney Island route for their production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. I suppose the idea of, say, Falstaff in a T-shirt cavorting among clotheslines hung with laundry must have seemed fresh and funny. Then, as they say, one thing led to another—doo-wop music; Nym, one of Falstaff’s buddies, sounding and dressing like a greaser; Mistress Quickly as a shrill, working-class girl; a boxing match rather than a duel with swords. Oh, the combination of Falstaff and Brooklyn in the 1950s is ripe with comic possibilities just waiting to be plucked.

Unfortunately, results are often different from intentions, and this production of Merry Wives was uneven, to say the least. The marriage of Shakespeare with the 1950s was an uneasy one, and like all such unions, neither side benefited from the match. First of all, there was the disconnect between Shakespeare’s words and the Coney Island setting, and thus we got Falstaff being dumped into the Thames as well as being tricked into entering Windsor forest at night. And a forest of laundry just does not have the same magic as a forest of trees. Furthermore, nothing about Shakespeare’s language fit with Brooklyn, from “Mistress” and “Master” to the “Sir” of Falstaff himself. To get around this, the supporting cast was allowed to cut loose with the various tics and mannerisms that people supposedly had on Coney Island in the 1950s, and the results ranged from incomprehensible to idiotic. In short, the supporting cast was painful to watch, and they nearly ruined the production.

Fortunately, for the most part, a cooler head prevailed with the leading roles, and the actors played their parts in a more or less straight fashion. Dennis Price (Falstaff), Dustin Tucker (Master Ford), Jeri Pitcher (Mistress Ford), Frank Omar (Master Page), and Kathleen Nation (Mistress Page) rescued this production from itself, and in their good performances, the essential nugget of the story survived.

And what is that story? The Merry Wives of Windsor has the reputation of being a rollicking good tale about clever housewives tricking the legendary Sir John Falstaff, a man of appetites and id who is literally larger than life, and their shenanigans are certainly part of the play. Short of money, Falstaff sets out to seduce Mistress Ford and Mistress Page and enrich himself in a most pleasurable way. Falstaff, confident to a fault, is certain that Mistress Ford and Mistress Page will shower money on him after they have had a taste of his ample charms. However, Mistresses Ford and Page are less than impressed with Sir John, and they come up with several nasty but funny little schemes to teach Falstaff a thing or two. After all, as Mistress Page explains, “Wives may be merry, and yet honest too.” Naturally, Falstaff plays right into their hands, and, in the process, he is thrown into the river, beaten, and pinched.

Woven into the play are the stories of Master Ford, Mistress Ford’s jealous husband, and Anne Page, Mistress Page’s daughter. Anne Page has three suitors who are vying for her hand; two of them are asses, and one of them is her true love. Unfortunately for Anne, her parents do not agree with her choice—they each prefer one of the asses, but not the same one, of course. This conflict thrums under, around, and between Falstaff and the merry wives.

Jealous Master Ford, on the other hand, is caught right in the middle of the wives’ plots, except he really doesn’t have a clue as to what is going on. In another play, Master Ford’s jealousy might have dire consequences, but Merry Wives is not a tragedy, which means that Mistress Ford’s neck is safe. Instead, the audience gets to laugh as Master Ford becomes entangled in the plot and tricked along with the hapless Falstaff. In the end, all is resolved in the forest, in the dark, mysterious setting that Shakespeare loved so well.

As was mentioned before, the actors who played the leading roles, for the most part, did a very good job. Frank Omar, as the unflappable Master Page, brought a nice matter-of-factness to his role. Omar made it easy to see why he and his wife had a comfortable, affectionate relationship, even if they did not always agree with each other. As Master Ford, Dustin Tucker was at times suitably jealous, intense, and even a little scary. At other times, when he donned a disguise to visit Falstaff, his acting was completely over-the-top, and it was too much. While this kind of acting does have its place, it should be used sparingly, and Tucker needs to learn to “curb his enthusiasm.” Jeri Pitcher as Mistress Ford and Kathleen Nation as Mistress Page made a terrific team. They brought zest, worldliness, intelligence, and snap to their roles, and when they were on stage, the scenes sparkled. I would like to see more plays with them on stage together.

Falstaff, of course, is the catalyst of the play, and everything hinges on him. When Dennis Price first came on stage, my initial thoughts were that he was neither large enough nor old enough to play the part. However, as the play progressed, these two things came to matter less because of two other more important aspects that Price brought to the role. The first was Price’s voice and the way he used it. Price’s delivery was crisp and clear, and his voice has such a wonderful cadence and authority that it was a pleasure to listen to him. The second was less quantifiable but equally important, and it concerns Price’s interpretation of Falstaff.

While it is true that Falstaff is a figure of fun, there is also something sad about him. In Merry Wives, we don’t get much of a back-story for Falstaff, but we do learn a few things fairly soon. That is, Falstaff is past his prime, broke, and must rely on his wits, which are not that sharp, to get by. He is staying in a room above an inn, and we get the impression that this is more or less his home. These are not happy circumstances, however they came about, for a man of Falstaff’s age, and Price, on some level, seemed to understand this. His Falstaff could frolic and bluster, but Price brought just the right touch of ruefulness to the role, and it is this ruefulness that added a measure of depth to what would otherwise be just a silly play. We can’t help but sympathize with this foolish, down and out miscreant who perhaps is punished a little more than he deserves.

This unexpected depth is present in all of Shakespeare’s comedies that I have either seen or read. Shakespeare had a lot to say about human nature, in all its various aspects, and although his vision was shrewd, it was also generous. It seems that human nature hasn’t changed that much since Shakespeare’s time, and this, along with his insight, is why we keep coming back to his plays. No matter how many times we see them, we can still learn from them, and they don’t need to be set in Nazi Germany or on Coney Island. In the end, the words, the story, and the acting are all we need.

 

5 1/2" x 5" 2008 Wolf Moon Calendar just $10.00 each
More Info

More Info

© Wolf Moon Press 2002-2008 all rights reserved.

Submission Guidelines