The Merry Wives of Windsor

~~The Merry Wives of Windsor is probably the most farcical of all the Shakespeare plays and tells the story of Sir John Falstaff who, finding himself short of money conspires to seduce two married ladies.  The ladies, having discovered his plan, set out to expose him as a preposterous lecher. Being Shakespeare, there is also a sub-plot around Anne Page and her 3 suitors – in the end she marries the man she loves so ensuring a happy ending for all. 

Many congratulations also on the scenery! One of the problems with Shakespeare can be the constantly changing scenes but that was solved by the use of the inventive set which really set the scene well for Stratford in 1602.  I loved the ‘opening out’ fireplace for the internal scenes which worked really well.

Similarly, costumes were a positive triumph, everyone really looked the part and one could say that you played the Bard at his own game by having ladies playing men instead of the other way round as it would have been in his day!

There were some good characterisations and facial expressions, my only real concern was that some of the diction was rushed, and some not crisp or rhythmic enough. As an audience you need to ‘tune in’ to iambic pentameter and in order to achieve that successfully the rhythm needs to be maintained and the diction clear – that said the meaning was portrayed well.  

The music was exactly right and sounded SO authentic – perhaps the volume of the music could have been lowered a little when there was speech over?       

Many congratulations for taking the brave decision to celebrate ‘The Bards’ birthday in such a positive way with probably the funniest of his works.  It was such a shame that, on the night I attended, the audience was so light, but you carried them with you and from what I heard in the auditorium they really enjoyed it, and I believe the applause at the end demonstrated that so I hope you will consider it ‘mission accomplished’ and that you all enjoyed performing it as much as you audience audibly enjoyed watching it. 

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