THE THEATER MIRROR, Boston's LIVE Theater Guide
| MARQUEE | USHER | INTERMISSION |
by William Shakespeare
Directed by Spiro Veloudos
Sir John Falstaff...........William Gardiner
Mistress Ford.............Deborah Schoenberg
Master Ford................Clifford M. Allen
Mistress Page.................Sheila Stasack
Master Page.....................John Herring
Anne Page.................Zoe Segal-Reichlin
Master Fenton...................Colin Stokes
Master Slender...................Doug Brandt
Peter Simple..................Peter A. Carey
Doctor Caius.....................Frank Dixon
Sir Hugh Evans.................Mike Thurston
William Page...................Todd W. Miner
Robin......................Mayhew Seavey III
John Rugby..................Duncan McCulloch
Bardolph......................Gary Nicholson
Pistol...........................Chris Burke
Nym.............................Steve Rotolo
Justice Shallow....................Bob Jolly
Mistress Quickly...........Anne-Marie Cusson
Garter Inn Host.............Alisun Armstrong
Garter Ladies...................Erin Maguire
MK Larsen
Ilyse Robbins
Spiro Veloudros, Artistic Director for The Publick Theatre, is blessed with an experienced cast for "The Merry Wives of Windsor". All but three of the twenty actors have trod the Publick 's simple, un-amplified outdoor stage before. Their obvious comfort and familiarity silken this sprawling, repetitious mishmash which, in any hands but Shakespeare's, would be a barely playable sow's ear.
It prefigures the conventional themes of later Restoration comedies: money and love, inheritances and cuckoldry. If the legend is true that Queen Elizabeth asked to see Sir John Falstaff in love, it is a love of their husbands' money first sends him wooing, and a belief in their feigned lust for him that trips him not once, but thrice into bombastic comeuppances.
It's Mistress Ford (Deborah Schoenberg) who invites him to assignations thwarted by her jealous husband's arrival, while Mistress Page (Sheila Stasack) lectures the audience with near feminist defenses of her sex. Eagerly tangled in their schemes, William Gardiner's Falstaff is turned every way but loose.
In a sub-plot, who will marry Ann Page (Zoe Segal- Reichlin) --- and share her inheritance when she attains seventeen? Will it be the mooning bumbler Abraham Slender (Doug Brandt) or the broken-French spouting Doctor Caius (Frank Dixon), or the pure-hearted young Master Fenton (Colin Stokes) who loves the lady not the dowery? Silly question!
If that weren't enough of a juggling act, a bunch of Falstaff's old pals wander in from the Henrys IV and V --- Bardolph the drunkard (Gary Nicholson), Pistol the brawler (Chris Burke), Nym the cutpurse (Steve Rotolo), Justice Shallow the old schemer (Bob Jolly), and even the meddlesome Mistress Quickly (Anne-Marie Cusson) --- though none but the last has much involvement with the main plots. In general, the play gallops off in all directions. There's even a midnight revel of elaborately masked "fairies" pinching poor Falstaff as a stag at bay.
Luckily the director gets clear, direct speech and a wide variety of physical inventiveness from a cast that knows when to take center-stage and when to defer to others. Solid talent everywhere allows him to orchestrate the pacing. For instance when Master Ford disguises himself to beg Falstaff's help in seducing his own wife, Clifford M. Allen's long, expository lines tumble out in a breakneck rush, while the fat knight --- when not pricked on to lusty wooing --- affects a quieter, almost contemplative directness.
Then there are characters that may not stand out in the text, but do in this production. Doug Brandt handles Slender's bombastic, self-effacing non-wooing with a fountain of nervous tics and tap-dances. Peter A. Carey as his servant Simple builds a granitic dead-pan and eternal slow-takes into a scene-stealing portrait of stolid sloth. And Frank Dixon's french malapropisms and flamboyant sword-play are impeccably timed. In this large, excellent cast their work holds its own, with fewer lines to work with.
All this company needs now is a dry stage and full houses
for the rest of their ambitious summer season. I hope they get
both. They deserve them.
===larry stark
4:33 a m
Set Design by Brent Wachter
Costume Design by Jana Durland Howland
Lighting Design by Russ Swift
Hair & Makeup Design by Melissa Houlter
Stage Manager Michele Keith
Original Music for "Fie on simple honesty" composed
by Steven Bergman
at
THE PUBLICK THEATRE
Christian A. Herter Park, Soldiers' Field Road, "BRIGHTON"
1(617)782-5425
through 28 July