A Night of Merriment: Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor

With the foreboding London clouds giving way to rainbows in the sky, my trip to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre to see Merry Wives of Windsor started beautifully. And what a show to start! The shenanigans were devilish, the merriment clear, and I was standing dead-center, my chin touching the front stage. I was so close that I could feel the wind caused by the rustle of skirts or thrust of a sword; during a few monologues I swear I saw spit fly across the stage. Every so often, I found myself caught in between a fierce dialogue between Page and Anne, or Falstaff and his crooks, and this standing between two portions of the stage made me feel as though I too were part of the scene. 

The Mistresses Ford and Page were wonderful together, playing the roles of tricksters with much delight and mirth. Their friendship and scheming seemed very believable -- I could certainly imagine my best friend and I comparing "love" notes or planning silly acts of revenge against men who had wronged us. I really enjoyed the scene where Falstaff comes to visit Mistress Ford for the second time. Mistress Page rushes into Ford's house, "warning" that house's mistress that her husband is coming. Mistress Page plays on the fact that she knows that Falstaff is hiding: she deliberately raises her voice and implies that Falstaff will be killed if he is found, creating a frenzy that results in Falstaff being dressed like a fat woman and being beaten with a stick. The interplay in these scenes is well-timed, and lets the audience in on their scheming (i.e. gesturing to Falstaff's hiding spot, making disgusted expressions when pretending to love Falstaff, etc), which helps us to feel like participants in their revenge. 

Falstaff himself is the center of the show. The audience loves him -- he is the idiot who mistakenly believes that the two wives desire him -- and his alternating self-deprecating/self-admiring humor woos us all. The actor who plays him, Christopher Benjamin, is perfect in the role. He bumbles about masterfully, if such a thing can be said. Notable Falstaff moments include when he is describing the Wives' attraction to him, when he outright refuses to enter the buck-basket for the second time, and his disguise as the Herne of Hunter. 

Other good characters include Page as the overbearing father of Anne, Slender (Anne's incompetent wooer), and the cute little Page (no relation to the Page surname). Ford's paranoia was also very well done, with the actor Andrew Havill managing to entice sympathy from the crowd while also keeping them laughing at Ford's ineptitude. 

Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor clearly distinguishes between men and women, and it was very obvious in this rendition. The women, aside from Mistress Quickly, are cunning and get what they want: the Mistresses humiliate Falstaff and Anne Page strategically marries Fenton. The men (notably Falstaff, Master Ford, Pistol, Slender and Dr. Caius) have character flaws that prevent them from achievement. Slender is an idiot who constantly mixes up the English language, Dr. Caius is simply bad at English (I'll make the turd?!), Falstaff and Ford are outsmarted by the women. The actors reveal this perspectively smoothly and with great fun.

Taking the Theatre in London class made this play more accessible to me, as I had read the play with its translations and could understand pretty much immediately the course of action. I found myself wondering how difficult it would be to perform this play after only three hours of practice, while having to coordinate the dances, the swordplay, and the trickery scenes (as it were in Shakespeare's day). I could barely even follow the last three words a character would speak, much less be able to interject my own lines.

Overall, Merry Wives of Windsor was terrific, the rain held off, and I left Shakespeare's Globe determined to return. 

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Melanie Gin

UCLA | UC London Bloomsbury

melaniegin1@gmail.com