I’ve seen so many Hamlets. So many Macbeths. Some Romeos and Juliets. A few Lears. A handful of Henry Vs. Two Twelfth Nights. Midsummers. Much Ados. Three Richards III. An As You Like It. A Coriolanus. Othello and Antony and Cleopatra and a Caesar or two. As You Like It and a Taming of the Shrew.
But never a
Merry Wives of Windsor. Until now.
It’s
thought of as one of Shakespeare’s lesser plays. History holds that Queen Elizabeth
I asked him to take Falstaff from Henry IV and give him a love story. He
does that. Sort of. Falstaff is no longer Prince Hal’s confidante. He’s a
lecherous man who has lost all his money and has decided to try to swindle cash
from two wealthy married women. The Merry Wives of the title.
Wackiness
ensues.
And for all
the comic misunderstandings, the cunning wives beating Falstaff at his own game,
the disguises and the lies and the complicated layers of relationships, it’s
easy to see why this show doesn’t get done very often. A lot of the jokes at
Falstaff’s expense are about his weight and his odour and the commentary on
class and privilege is done much better in other works of the Bard.
The Australian
Shakespeare Company production, though, is beautifully conceived and hilariously
staged. Director Glenn Elston, who has been directing Shakespeare in Melbourne’s
Botanic Gardens for nearly thirty years, has dropped this farce squarely in the
1970s; big hair, flares, bubble writing and Star Wars references to
boot. It takes the humour of the text and dials things up to eleven and beyond.
Sitting in
the gardens, under a bright blue evening sky, as the sun sinks slowly behind trees
and city buildings – a bottle of wine and snacks to share; this a delightful
night out to be sure. And the cast is absolutely cracking.
Peter Houghton’s
Falstaff is gloriously buffoonish. Dion Mills’ Sir Hugh is a devilishly funny
pastor. And Natasha Herbert’s Mistress Quickly stalks the stage with a sly and wicked
confidence.
But it’s
the Merry Wives, played by Elizabeth Brennan and Anna Burgess, who really
embrace the chaos of the play’s complicated cross-double-cross plotting and
turn Mistress Ford and Mistress Page into The Real Housewives of Windsor. They
scheme and deceive with the best of them, working hand-in-hand to keep everyone
on their toes while Falstaff gets his comeuppance. The pair are brilliant.
The two families are colour-coded and the set is helpfully signposted, so the audience has some chance of keeping up with the ever-complicated comic story strands. There’s even a helpful introduction by the Hostess of the Garter Inn (Madeleine Somers), to help ground us before the aforementioned wackiness kicks off.
I have some reservations about this play as a play, but this production is a real joy and a gift to those of us who have seen a lot of Shakespeare but are still missing a Measure for Measure, a Pericles, a couple of Noble Kinsmen and these Merry Wives of Windsor. Until now.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
The Merry Wives of Windsor is playing at the Botanic Gardens until January 25
Photos: Ben Fon
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