Summary 
Charming outdoor production features memorable comic portrayals of both Falstaff and Ford and a great deal of audience participation and involvement. Expertly directed, richly detailed entertainment.
Design
Directed by Karen Sheridan. Costumes and set by Michelle Ney. Lights by Laura Manteuffel. Sound by Colleen Kenny.
Cast
Jonathan Awori (Shallow), Matthew Lane Schwartz (Evans), John Fischer (Slender), Thomas Anthony Quinn (Page), Michael McCalister (Falstaff), John Manzelli (Bardolph), Pat Jacobs (Pistol), David Kepley (Nym), Corryn Cummins (Anne Page), Cheryl Leigh Williams (Mistress Page), Laura Frances Love (Mistress Ford), Hans Fleischmann (Simple), Stephen Rose (Host), John Tovar (Caius), Frank Nall (Ford).
Analysis
Director Karen Sheridan impresses with her grasp of the subtleties and challenges of staging The Merry Wives of Windsor at the outdoor Illinois Shakespeare Festival. When the sometimes clumsily plotted play slows, Sheridan directly involves the audience or utilizes an adroit splash of color. In her hands, Shakespeare's characters are a delight, costumed in loose-fitting, rag-like patchwork pastels with boots and floppy hats.
Sheridan rises to the difficulty of the text's ponderous 1.1 - and its staggering slew of characters - with a quickened pace and liberal imbuing of each of the personalities with charm and detail, whether it is the dodder of the stooped and white-mustached old Shallow exhibiting surprising prowess with his cane as if it is a sword, or the giggling blather of the purple-attired, white-collared Slender flirting clumsily with Anne Page. Even a character as non-essential as the simplistic Simple is memorable, as he scurries across the dramatic background, sliding across the stage in benevolent confusion or trying - and always failing - to assist with numerous scene changes.
Sheridan has particular success with the play's foreign characters. The Welsh Sir Evans ("pless my soul!") in his ever-present black hat, finds his 1.1 preaching succumb into comic band conducting with his drawn sword, and in the aborted 3.1 duel, his sword repeatedly clangs to the stage, and Page and Shallow must help him guide the sword-tip into its belted sheath. Doctor Caius embarks on an absurdly manic solo sword fight, complete with screams and taunting and his own hummed dramatic music, as he charges upstairs into the gallery then back down again, battling invisible enemies whose "bodies" fly from his apparent skill. Caius' impossibly thick French accent - from "I will make the t'ird" to his references to Anne Page ("On Podge") and Sir Hugh ("Sir Huge") - garners appreciative laughter.
The titular wives are played as knowing and scrupulous, but with the production's prevalent charm. Their elegant gowns correspond to the color schemes of their respective husbands for ease of identification and correlation, and beneath tiny bonnets they display similar hair styles: large twin circular puffs like Disney Mousketeers, Mistress Ford brunette and Mistress Page blonde. In 2.1, Mistress Page singles out the "one chaste man" by gesturing to a gentleman in the audience, then changes her mind and dismisses him - and all men - with a dissatisfied wave of the hand.
Sheridan employs ample audience involvement to energize the production, as when the Host lurches to the front row and kneels and laughs with a patron, then lays his head on her lap, or when the frustrated Ford slinks to the back of the outdoor theatre seeking encouragement, sits down, and rests his head on someone's shoulder while the audience member consoles him by patting his back. Most memorably, the initial humiliation of Falstaff within the Ford home spills deep into the audience. After the knight sinks to one knee with an "ooh" of pain and plays with twin curls of hair as she feigns comically carnal pleasure, Mistress Page flees four rows into the theatre. When Falstaff pursues, she scampers through the aisle - over and around audience members - to escape to the next aisle. The audience is delighted and erupts when, after a few moments' breather, Falstaff pursues, and theatre-goers must scramble to avoid his blustering chase.
Simply staged upon a wood framed set with meshed windows, Falstaff's boisterous scenes include a tavern table and stools that slide out from beneath the gallery. Michael McCalister portrays the "greasy knight" as a sympathetic foil rather than as a jaded would-be victimizer. The frenetic Falstaff is not ugly but robust, not wise but buffoonish, and he is almost lovable in his huffing and puffing self-deceit. Bald and wild-eyed with a frizzy gray beard, McCalister wears black boots and dapper clothing and hat, but is pot-bellied and dissipated, like one of the Three Musketeers gone to seed.
McCalister almost chews the scenery literally, climbing atop the tavern table to make a point while others scramble to clear cups and tankards and then steady the table, or when he chases after Pistol, grabs him by the crotch, and applies a wrestler's headlock while he addresses Brook. McCalister's Falstaff is a joy to behold, whether it be when he sways and swivels his hips, when he lifts a leg onto a bench to display his "good parts," when he gapes in a comically bug-eyed expression of wonder, or when he ties a knot in his gnarly beard while deliberating. In his wooing of Mistress Ford in 3.3, he feigns a heart attack - counting down 5-4-3-2-1 with his fingers to the audience - before grabbing her, settling her on his knee, and then bouncing her so mightily that she becomes nonsensical.
Falstaff's compatriots are also colorfully presented, with a knife-wielding Nym, a gun-toting Pistol, and Bardolph with a drinking cup tied to his belt. McCalister, however, dominates the stage even when not interacting with the other characters, such as when he points to his nose to indicate complete agreement with Brook, or when he shields his eyes at the description of Mistress Ford's beauty being "too bright."
Already a fine presentation, Sheridan's Merry Wives elevates to the excellent with a delightful performance from Frank Nall as Master Ford. Nall's insanely jealous husband seethes and sputters, and pants and puffs, and seems as if he is about to explode. The red-faced Ford exhibits a variety of mannerisms: his fingers flutter at "love like a shadow flies"; he stutters over the word, "cuckold," and holds his pointed fingers like horns over his head; he spits the word "Page" with derision at the man's lesser jealousy; and his fingers curl and he trembles with a desire to strangle at the mere mention of Falstaff's name. The sandy-haired Nall portrays the fictitious "Brook" in an awful jet-black mustache that is visibly strapped over his ears. Nall fights the urge to kick the bending Falstaff, instead embracing him from behind, and once alone, he throws his hat and "disguise" to the ground, and with, "Who says this is imprudent jealousy," he raises his hand and looks to the audience for agreement or dissent.
In his two desperate attempts to catch Falstaff within his home, Nall's Ford provides the show's comic highlights. He leads his friends in frantic searches through the doorways and windows of the set like the Keystone Kops, shouting and peering and posing from each opening with an accusatory "ah ha!" or a menacing growl, until finally wheezing and out of breath in failure. His search for the fat knight in the laundry basket - with garments tossed high in the air and Nall's legs kicking as he upends himself - ends in a quietly droll, "well, he's not here."
Sheridan consistently displays keen attention to detail. When two house servants fail to even budge the laundry basket that conceals Falstaff, two more servants are called in, and all four struggle and stagger offstage, and later, when called again to remove the basket, this time empty, all four simply flee.
The repetitive woodlands conclusion of The Merry Wives is always difficult to stage, and Sheridan wisely minimizes the scene and accelerates the pace throughout Falstaff's redundant third humiliation. The scene is staged before curtains painted with woodland trees and is presented in near darkness, with "the fairies" wearing garland headpieces that carry candle-lights that dance and sway in the outdoors twilight.
In large part due to McCalister's blustering Falstaff and Nall's furious Ford, but especially due to Sheridan's expert direction, this is an excellent presentation of a lesser play.
Note: A version of this article was edited and published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol.17, No.4, Fall 1999.