Merry Wives of Windsor

Sorry no pictures, but we did see the Merry Wives of Windsor last night. This was my first night of garden Shakespeare this year, because of the nasty way the weather has of downpouring at right about the start of the shows (7:30 p.m.). One student, Amanda Rowe, met us in Kings College garden, which I had never been in before.

The college gardens are one of those hidden traditions that make Cambridge colleges different than those of the U.S. Normally, these gardens are closed to non-college members. When gardens are opened, they evidence the British genius with this art form--lush, manicured lawns, bordered by a profusion of colorful flowers and manicured woodland. As a further surprise, one of the Kings buildings that borders the garden was a rather daring modern block of rooms, with plenty of glass block and metal railings. One can't even see this building from any public thoroughfare. Actually, in a correction, one can see the back of this building from a public road, but the back is completely conventional.

Anyhow, the production was excellent. In many ways, it's Shakespeare as it should be seen--outside, with minimal props and an exuberant cast that is also doing other productions of other Shakespeare plays at the same time. Now Merry Wives is extremely topical--after the success of Henry IV parts 1 and 2, Elizabeth commanded another play with Falstaff in it. Here are the topical bits: it's set in Windsor, the site of one of Elizabeth's palaces, and it's placed in the present time (that is, Elizabethan present time). It's city comedy, in that it deals with social relationships and sexual mores of smart, "sophisticated," urban folks. Absolutely a puff piece, with Falstaff taking center stage, and at least two characters from the Henry IV sequence appearing (Mistress Quickly, Justice Shallow, and maybe the innkeeper, though I'm not sure about this last).

The playing was right where it should be: lots of burlesque, overacting, making a big point of jokes and puns, and so on. Again, the acting fitted the structure and content of the play.

A final word about Shakespeare as he "should" be seen--I just mean that in an "historically authentic" kind of way. We'll never be able to experience what an Elizabethan audience did in the way they did (we have too much subsequent media history, for one thing), but it's nice to see how it's done with many of the same strictures as the 1590's--few props, no real scenery, good costumes, a small acting company, gender bending. Of course, no spotlights in Shakespeare (we had those), and the gender-bending was all the other way, with women taking some of the men's roles, as opposed to the other way around.