All's Merry in MO.
Berkeley Shakespeare Festival Offers Fine
'Wives of Windsor'
San Jose Mercury News
Nearly everyone, it seems, is doing "The Merry Wives of Windsor" this
summer: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, VITA Shakespeare Festival, Berkeley
Shakespeare Festival. Even San Francisco Opera has gotten into the act: Its
Merola Opera troupe will perform Otto Nicolai's operatic adaptation July 15 at
Stern Grove. The slightest of Shakespeare's comedies is rumored to have been
written in two weeks at the request of Queen Elizabeth I, who wanted to see
more of the fat, vain, rascally, amorous knight, Sir John Falstaff. And truly, it
shows every sign of hasty composition. But a good production conceit can do
wonders with its perfunctory material, and Berkeley Shakespeare has a
delightful one.
Director Julian Lopez-Morillas takes it to Missouri, the Show Me state. And he
did. Show me, that is.
All's well in Windsor
His Windsor, Mo., is a frontier town with the raw edges worn off. As he
explains in a program note, its comfortable bourgeois values -- home and
family, church and school, commerce and prosperity -- are very much the
values of Shakespeare's Windsor. The womenfolk are smart enough to let the
men think they're in charge, and all's well -- for there's never a doubt that Sir
John, who tries to seduce two ladies at the same time, gets his
comeuppance.
But the production is more than its setting. Director and cast have noted
subtle clues in the script that differentiate the Fords from the Pages. They're
not interchangeable. The Pages (rotund, jocund William McKereghan and rangy
Amy Ukena, who has a sparkle in her eye and a knowing smile) have a homey,
friendly relationship; the Fords do not. Mistress Ford (Lura Dolas) always has
one nervous eye on her high-strung husband (John Bellucci), who is jealous,
touchy, difficult.
Fine female foils
Dolas and Ukena are fine foils, playing off each other with assurance and
respect and crisp comic timing. Bellucci, a superlative actor, gives another
delicately shaded performance as Ford, finding tragic complexity in a man who
is almost always played as a one-dimensional coward, saved from being a
cuckold only by the wife he doesn't trust.
The production is blessed with a wonderful Falstaff, San Diego-based actor
Ollie Nash, who is big and boisterous yet not afraid to show the knight as
vulnerable as he is vainglorious. Robin Goodrin Nordli's homespun Mistress
Quickly comes with a hayseed accent, a benign squint through her specs --
and an outstretched palm.
In the subplot, Brad Myers gives an agreeably fussy demeanor and
burned-tongue diction to the Welsh curate, and Douglas Sills a fop's spurious
dignity to Dr. Caius, a man of few words, most of them uttered in the
funniest ersatz French accent since Inspector Clouseau.
Samuel Gregory as Caius' servant, Jack Rugby, is a gem: a literal Boy Scout with
a freckled nose, clad in short pants and a campaign hat. (When Caius asks him
the time, he stands turned out in a semblance of fifth position and functions
as his own sundial.) Adam Adler, who looks to be about 9 years old, gives
Robin, the page, a precocious cynicism and a roguish eye.
Doing a lot with a little
Some of the tiny parts are so well sketched -- D. Lance Marsh as Simple,
Americanized with a country Swedish accent -- that the less adept
performances are twice as irritating. These include Duane Boutte's truly callow
Fenton; William Mendieta's leering Hispanic caricature of Nym; Bob Devin
Jones' phony British Bardolph. (What on earth is he doing here?)
Sara Walke and Jordan Lee Williams are just sort of there as Anne and Slender,
the least personable of her suitors. And Peter A. Jacobs so dresses up Justice
Shallow with Col. Sanders mannerisms that he loses most of the lines.
Michael R. Cook did a lot with a little in the transparent set design. The
buildings of Windsor, Mo., are made of wide- spaced slats and topped by false
fronts, and the bar of the Garter Hotel & Bar slides ingeniously in and out of
the scenery. There's even a porch swing (and three horrid little boys beneath
it, spying on Anne and Fenton's courtship).
Gail Russell's perfect costumes define each character, and composer Doug
Morton leads the town brass quartet in nostalgic tunes.
Lopez-Morillas is a Shakespearean scholar as well as an actor/director, and he
has let scholarship lead him astray here. Until dress rehearsal, the play was
mercilessly uncut. To come in under John Hinkel Park's neighborhood curfew,
he pruned the mythical German section. (I say "mythical" because nobody ever
does the German section.)
It still has the Latin lesson (yawn) and bogs down, literally, in the marshes
outside Windsor, where the curate and Dr. Caius have their duel. (At least the
tuba provides amusing mud and squishy shoe noises.) However good his
intentions to produce an honest "Merry Wives," it runs every minute of three
hours, which is too long for silliness. But you can't blame the guy for trying.
The season continues with "Othello" (opening next Friday) and a real rarity,
the problematic late romance "Cymbeline" (opening Aug. 3). All three plays run
in repertory through Aug. 26.
Just for the record, this is Berkeley Shakespeare's last season in charming
John Hinkel Park. (I know, I know, this is the third year in a row it's been the
last season.) Artistic director Michael Addison says ground has been broken
for the new amphitheater in Orinda. Excelsior!
-Judith Green, San Jose Mercury News
June 20, 1990
Biography | News | Photo Gallery
Fan Thoughts | Music | Lucy's Page
This page hosted by 
Get your own Free Home Page