MERRY WIVES OF (WINDSOR) CORNWALL

MERRY WIVES OF (WINDSOR) CORNWALL

By William Shakespeare

ST AUSTELL PLAYERS

Directed by Dorothy Nelson

As seen by Kathy West on 9th November 2018

I have seen The Merry Wives of Windsor many times, but have never seen it set in Cornwall.  It was quite refreshing to hear local references, and the audience responded well to this.

There was a composite set which represented the many different houses and rooms.  The upstage area was slightly raised, and had a street scene stage right (Fore Street) with a nice working front door, to represent the exterior of the Page's house.  Upstage left was a fireplace with portrait above, and with the addition of a chaise and one or two other items, this became the interior of the Ford's house.  The downstage right area represented Dr Caius's house, and contained a cupboard (into which we could see).  This cupboard was also used in Mistress Ford's house. Downstage left was the inn, the Garter, represented by a table and bench, and a further table and chairs downstage centre.

This composite set allowed actors to move swiftly from one location (or one scene) to another, thereby aiding the pace.  However, I was a little puzzled by the use of the set at times.  People in the street talked to people in the Inn as if there were no walls, and the host of the Garter constantly watched the action from the Inn, and reacted to it even though she was in a different location. In an early scene in Act 1, when Anne Page was in the street with Slender, she reached down and took a chair from the forestage (Inn) area and placed it in the street.  In Act 2 when the street scene was being played upstage, an actor stood leaning on the fireplace, which surely was not in the street scene?  Actors need to be consistent about the 'geography' of the set in order to make it clear to the audience where they are at any particular time.

In the final scene the stage was transformed into the Kings Wood with the addition of the quite magnificent Herne's Oak, which was brought on from behind the backcloth, and accompanied by some beautifully attired dancing fairies.

The costumes were stylishly designed and made (in particular the ladies dresses).  I especially liked the fact that each of the families and their servants were colour-coordinated so that when large numbers of characters were on stage we did not have to work out who was married to whom, and which servant was which!  There was some gender-blind casting, and whilst these performances were all credible, I would have preferred these male characters (played by women) to have been dressed as men, rather than in dresses.  In 1790 (when this particular production was set), a Justice of the Peace would not have been female, and I think this character would have been more credible in a man's clothing.  Also the servants Pistol and Nim could easily have been dressed in breeches, and then their ribald exchanges with Falstaff would have seemed less incongruent.

Props were minimal but authentic and handled well.  I would have liked the laundry basket to have had a lid;  however, the dirty clothes in the laundry basket all looked suitably disgusting!  Falstaff's antlers in the final scene were lovely.

Lighting was good in that we could see all of the areas of the stage well. 

I very much appreciated the 2 fiddle players on stage at various times in this production.  The singing of 'Guide me, O my great redeemer' was lovely and it would have been nice if the violinists had played this song from the stage instead of from the wings (we had already seen them several times by then so they could easily have come on).

There was a good use of physicality in this production.  The early street scene between Anne and Slender was well performed, and there were several good pratfalls and tumbles.  I liked the use of the moving screen that Falstaff hid behind.  I thought there was undue reliance on pelvic thrusting to point the innuendo; it became monotonous that this was persistently performed throughout the play and I would have appreciated other means of conveying the sub-text at times, perhaps with the use of voice.  The final dance during the bows was a nice touch.  The little fairies played their parts well.    Most of the actors' entrances were made onto the upstage rostrum, and this part of the stage was very narrow; this resulted in actors entering at a slow pace (because they had restricted space to enter into) and gave the impression of many entrances being done at a 'wander'.  Conversely, I liked the use of the auditorium as an entrance as it allowed the actors to enter at pace.

This was a challenging undertaking for this company, and your efforts were very much appreciated and well received by the audience. 

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