By Emma
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The Merry Wives of Windsor is basically a fanfic
request. Shakespeare had just written Henry IV Part 1 which included a
character called Sir John Falstaff. No-one is sure how real he is, there was a
Sir John Falstaff from around that time and some people think the character of
Falstaff was based on him. Other people think he’s a mixture of three different
real people and some people think he’s a total invention.
Whoever he was, Queen Elizabeth I really liked him and she asked Shakespeare to write another play all about Falstaff. It’s never a good idea to go upsetting your employer (especially one whose dad was so into cutting people’s heads off) so Shakespeare wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor before he wrote Henry IV Part II. It’s not a totally flattering play for Falstaff as he’s basically an old lech but it is very funny.
One thing I like about The Merry Wives of Windsor is
all the girl power. Alice Ford and Meg Page are very intelligent. They work out
what Falstaff is up to and instead of putting up with it or asking their
husbands to sort him out they decide to sort it out themselves. Alice and Meg
are both really good characters and I thought Valentina Vinci (Alice) and
especially Charlotte Gallagher (Meg) acted their roles very well. They were
funny and clever and really likeable characters and I think they’re good role
models for Meg’s daughter Anne.
The other two merry ‘wives’ are Anne (who is engaged) and
Mrs Quickly (who is widowed) but I do feel like they’re part of it. Bridget
Randolph’s Anne wasn’t as colourful as Meg and Alice but she was sweet and
romantic and she had some lovely scenes with Jacob Alexander who is really
adorable as Fenton. He’s quite geeky which is cute and they’re so into each
other. I used to imagine Mistress Quickly as being quite old but I have seen a
few productions now where she is quite young and glam. I think it works either
way. Ariel Puls is really funny in this role.
This play is mostly about the women but there are some important
male characters too especially Falstaff or Falstaffe which is how they spelt it
in this production. I thought Brian Burger was really funny. I wasn’t sure I
really liked him as a person because he seems quite selfish and obviously what
he tries to do with Meg and Alice isn’t on but Brian is really good at all the
humour.
Out of the other men I thought Beth Yocam did a really good
job as Shallow because she did her make-up so she actually looked like a man.
She was very funny too. Dewi Hughes was brilliant as Sir Hugh Evans, he has a
lovely Welsh accent and lots of personality and he’s a really good singer.
Welshmen have a reputation for being good singers but I’m really not sure that’s
always true. Brian Saville Allard made Dr Caius really French and he was funny.
I really liked Matt Williams as Page too, I thought he seemed like a really
nice guy. Michael Luke Walsh gave Nym lots of personality and Eugenia Low was
really good as Pistol.
Shake-scene usually have a cast that is based in Britain but
this is a co-production with OPSFest in the USA. It was streamed live on Facebook
instead of Zoom and there were quite a few technical difficulties which was
probably fakebook’s fault because Zoom is usually fine. Shakespeare Happy Hours
has cast members from both sides of the Atlantic and The Show Must Go Online
really want to cast someone from Antarctica as that is the only continent they
haven’t had actors in so it obviously can be done but I don’t think Facebook is
as good as Zoom. Lizzie Hughes who is in charge of Shake-scene had to do quite
a bit of prompting and acting as a swing when people’s internet connections
disappeared. She is really good and totally on top of everything.
It is always interesting watching Shake-scene and seeing the
actors work with cue scripts on scrolls like in Shakespeare’s time. All the
actors have to concentrate really hard but I think they do really well.
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