The Merry Wives of Windsor
Sudsy Shakespeare, set in the soap-bubble cleanliness of the'50s. The rotating set, which takes us from soda shop to happy home to pleasant park (with a door to a motel tellingly added, if never employed) is almost as much fun as the goings-on, which have to do with fat John Falstaff's attempt to bed not one, but two married women in well-behaved Windsor. But women talk, don't you know, and in no time, they're plotting to prank the lumbering lothario. The telling line: "Wives may be merry, and yet honest, too." That helps makes sense of the setting: ten years later, that sort of honesty might have been seen as submission, or denial, while a night with the Knight might have come across as brave, or at least adventurous. And the jealous husband would have been a bad joke, while here he's a good one. The really bold bit comes in the script department, via frequent insertions of era-appropriate lingo. "A soda jerk is a good trade." "Razz my berries." "Tuna casserole? Nummy nummy nummy!" But it's all so frothy and free of consequence that it hardly seems like violence to the Bard's genius — even if it only occasionally feels like a genuine addition. (Shoutout to Schlitz.) The actors follow the script's lead and play it big and broad, but this is the good old Globe, so it stops short of over the top. Jenn Harris shows special expertise in this department as Mrs. Quickly — and boy howdy, is she. A regular Benzedrine queen, all tics and quirks and reliably funny. Tom McGowan's bumbling rascal Falstaff practically comes off as straight man by comparison.
When
Ongoing until Sunday, September 3, 2023
Hours
| Sundays, 2pm |
| Fridays, 7:30pm |
| Saturdays, 7:30pm |