'The Merry Wives' of Prospect Lawn

Ah . . . picture it: Cuddling with that special someone on a blanket outdoors on a sunny fall day, giving audience to the immortal beauty and romance that is Shakespeare's language, set amidst the rainbow of autumn foliage. It's a lovely image, isn't it?

Now pinch yourself to wake up. You're single and freezing your buns off alone on Prospect Lawn watching actors hurl such insults your way as "lascivious turtle," "King Urinal" and — my personal favorite — "You Banbury Cheese!"

Perhaps the scene has lost some of its dreamy idyllic nature, but the words are still Shakespeare's own, and the Princeton Shakespeare Company's production of "The Merry Wives of Windsor" is sure to have you looking at the Bard in ways you have never imagined.

What? You've never read "Merry Wives"? Don't go running for Shakespeare's complete works just yet. This is exactly what director Katie Flynn '02 had in mind when she decided last spring to put on this particular piece.

"I really wanted to do one of the lesser-known Shakespeare works so that people would come in without the usual preconceived notions of what it would be about," Flynn explained, noting that "Merry Wives" is also, in her opinion, one of the Bard's less intellectual plays. "It doesn't go into any deep-seated issues."

Touted by PSC as "a farcical story of lust, disguised husbands, dueling nations and desired daughters," "Merry Wives" reintroduces the slapstick antics of Sir John Falstaff (Dok Harris '01), previously seen in Shakespeare's "Henry IV" plays. This time, however, the portly drunk with an insatiable lust for life takes center stage, attempting to juggle multiple women as well as pints of ale.

Similarly, the play itself must balance Falstaff's ribaldry with the parallel love plot between the young Anne (Cristy Lytal '01) and Fenton (Logan Elliott '03) all under the disapproving eye of her parents (Erin Gilley '02 and Andy Luse '02). The combination of all these couplings, interspersed with an ensemble of equally entertaining supporting characters gives the play its farcical, frenetic speed that is sure to elicit constant laughs from the shivering audience.

But Flynn adds her own spin to the play's already implicit humor. Instead of using the courtly Renaissance setting Shakespeare prescribed, Flynn has brought her own vision to the play, updating the period to Jazz Age 1920s America, complete with flappers, gangsters, bootlegging and even a four-piece live jazz ensemble that will perform alongside the actors.

"The Twenties were the definitely the most fun age in America. It was an era that was just so full of life — definitely the most life contained within a single decade. Everyone was beautiful, energetic and powerful," Flynn explained, adding that the language and the situational humor seem to flow right into the updated time period.

"It's basically a universal setting: a jealous husband, lust, revenge, parental conflict," she said. "It's something we can all relate to even today."

With bob haircuts, whiskey-running, saxophone accompaniment and Falstaff as a retired Mafia kingpin, the production would seem to have nothing in common with Elizabethan theater. But again, Flynn surprises us by directing her cast in classical Shakespearean acting methods — actors will address the audience, mingle throughout the crowd and use spectators as extras.

"I wanted to do Shakespeare as it was meant to be done, incorporating classical styles of Elizabethan acting into the play with actors directly addressing the audience just like they did on the Elizabethan stage," Flynn explained.

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Flynn says her love for Shakespeare stems primarily from his well-thought scripting. The cast is working only with First Folio text, the original version of the play.

"Everything is written into the text — blocking, set, language, style. [Shakespeare] wrote his plays to be picked up and performed in just a few days," she said. "You can learn [the play] in a second the way it's all in the text."

Another traditional Elizabethan method Flynn wanted to keep in her own production is cross-dressing. While the script calls for a majority of the characters to be male, Flynn's cast is equally divided between genders. The result is that many women actors play male suitors, as opposed to the men who played female roles in the all-male theater companies of Shakespeare's day, adding a rather complex sexual dynamic.

Despite the play's methodical complexities, Flynn maintains that her main interest in "Merry Wives" is its lighthearted nature, which is often overlooked by the scholarly gaze.

"It's important for Princeton people to step back and not consider Shakespeare as intellectually as they always seem to do," she said. "Shakespeare's plays were for the general not-so-educated public."

Even so, "Merry Wives" is not without its own unique — and yes, scholarly — history. According to legend, Shakespeare composed the play in 14 days at the insistence of Queen Elizabeth. As the story goes, the theater-loving Queen was so enamored with the character of Falstaff in the "Henry IV" plays that she eagerly commanded a play in which Falstaff falls in love. Shakespeare obliged, and the result is the fanciful comedy that is "Merry Wives."

Though brightly comic, this play is not without the Bard's characteristic jabs at society. Many of the characters' family names are taken straight from history, London court or from the Bard's Stratford neighbors — indeed, Shakespeare's last laugh was on British society.

Flynn and her cast take a very lighthearted approach to the production. As Gilley ("Mrs. Page") remarked, "It's just Shakespeare for the fun of it." Flynn stressed the importance of the audience coming into the performance for the same reason Shakespeare's original audiences did — simply to be entertained.

"In this day and age, people always seem to do Shakespeare as a work that can only be seen as intellectual," she said. "I'm taking a more populist approach. This is how [Shakespeare] made his money. He didn't sit down and say, 'Now I'm going to create this masterpiece of world literature.' He just wrote to entertain."

So bring a coat, bring a blanket, bring that special someone if you've got one, but leave the Harold Bloom essays behind. Let yourself drift back in time for just a few hours and instead of experiencing Shakespeare like a Princetonian, try and imagine yourself as an Elizabethan carpenter on your day off. Just don't forget to remind yourself where you are when the play ends.

The Princeton Shakespeare Company presents "The Merry Wives of Windsor." Fri., Oct. 12 - Sun., Oct. 14 and Fri., Oct. 20 - Sun. Oct., 22. Fri. at 4 p.m. and Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. U-CALL SHAKESPEARE for reservations. Bring picnic blankets.