Does Shakespeare translate to our 21st century present? Yes, but it helps to take liberties. And Great Lakes Theater’s current production of Merry Wives of Windsor at the Hanna Theatre takes liberties aplenty, broad liberties that the cast plays to exuberant perfection.
For starters, Director Tracy Young has set this MWoW immediately after the Second World War in “Windsor, Wisconsin” and modeled this Falstaff after Orson Wells. As played by Aled Davies, this Falstaff / Wells is a former film star gone to seed and fat. (Physically, alas, one is also reminded a bit of Marlon Brando in his later years.) He is all vanity, getting by on his last reserves of charm — why else are we willing to watch? — but clearly on his way down. Sitting in a folding canvas chair like the film director he is, he watches clips of Orson Wells’ movies on a 1940’s movie projector, scheming to seduce the merry wives in order to get at their husbands’ money in order to finance his next film project.
And like the Wells dear to our pop culture hearts this Falstaff is fat and grows fatter throughout the play. We know that his increasing girth (“Indeed, I am in the waist two yards about.”) is thanks to the efforts of Costume Designer Alex Jaeger but it would be easy to believe it’s the result of what Falstaff eats and drinks in the course of this production. Food and drink figure prominently in this Falstaff’s onstage behavior — anything else would be a major let down — and so we see gobs and gobs of real-looking pastries and period-correct movie house candy.
Spoiler alert, there’s a food fight, a pie in the face, and whipped cream in cleavage. We get a good look inside a dumpster full of very real-looking garbage. Bottles and bottles of beer and spirits go down the hatch in this production, so much that we piously hope that it is somehow non-alcoholic lest the actors fall out before the intermission.
Has GLTF betrayed the Bard and dragged a classic in the mire? It’s worth remembering that the Shakespearian sensibility was quite different from our own. The Elizabethans ‘enjoyed’ bear baiting, cock fights, dog fights, all kinds of vulgarity, and even public executions. All were OK. High and low culture came cheek to jowl in the theater and part of the genius of Shakespeare was to play to both high and low.
Those who wish that GLTF had produced a deeper, more rarified MWoW would do well to remember that this play and this version of the Falstaff character are notable for their lack of depth. Falstaff is unique as a comedic character from Shakespeare’s historical dramas (Henry IV parts one and two) who finds himself reinvented in one of Shakespeare’s purely comedic plays, the Merry Wives of Windsor.
In the Henry plays, Falstaff is companion to Prince Hal, and although fat, vain, and boastful, he enjoys a certain depth of character so that when Hal repudiates him we feel a discomfort nearing pathos. But in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff is purely and broadly comedic. So when we find Falstaff cruelly used by the standards of our time, it is hard not to be appalled in a way we would not be by the Three Stooges. This is one of the difficulties in contemporizing Shakespeare’s plays. We have to dampen our inner 21st century sensibility censor. If you can let that part of yourself go and free your inner Elizabethan, you will have fun with this production.
We must not fail to mention the funny, funny dancing that is so tightly and aptly integrated into this show. Kudos to Choreographer Helene Peterson and the youthful members of the ensemble, especially Owen Desberg.
Falstaff is merely the straight man for the merry wives themselves played with comic know-how by Laura Welsh Berg and Jodi Dominick. Lynn Robert Berg, so compelling as Richard III last season, brings dark depth as well as comedy to the role of the jealous husband.
We saw Merry Wives of Windsor at the Hanna Theatre on opening night, Saturday 9/27/2014. It runs at various times and days in rep with Les Miserables with the last showing of MWoW at 3pm Sunday 11/2/2014. Tickets are $15 – $70. Students $13. Phone 216-241-6000, go to Playhouse Square Box Office, or go to GreatLakesTheater.org.
From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas. Elsa and Vic are both longtime Clevelanders. Elsa is a landscape designer. She studied ballet as an avocation for 2 decades. Vic has been a dancer and dance teacher for most of his working life, performing in a number of dance companies in NYC and Cleveland. They write about dance as a way to learn more and keep in touch with the dance community. E-mail them at vicnelsaATearthlink.net.
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