Elm Shakespeare Makes New Haven Merry

“Here will be an old abusing of God’s patience and the King’s English,” says Mistress Quickly, played with cheeky humor by Martine Fleurisma in Elm Shakespeare Company’s production of one of the bard’s lesser-known works, The Merry Wives of Windsor. The production plays fast and loose with the audience’s expectations, but it never betrays their patience or wastes their time. Instead, The Merry Wives of Windsor — running now through Sept. 3 at Edgerton Park — provides exactly what it promises: wit, wiles, wanton scoundrels, and scheming wives. Most of all, it supplies the audience with over two hours of good, old-fashioned fun.

As the story goes, Shakespeare wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor as a vehicle to satisfy Queen Elizabeth’s request for more of John Falstaff, the ne’er-do-well rascal from Henry IV Parts I and II. As the genre transitions from history to comedy, Falstaff — played here with exquisite absurdity by Raphael Massie — becomes less melancholy and even more mischievous than in his original appearance. 

Falstaff hatches a plot to seduce Mistress Page and Mistress Ford (Abigail Onwunali and Liz Daingerfield), two married women, in order to get to their money. ​“I will be cheaters to them both, and they shall be exchequers to me,” he cackles. But he soon discovers he has bitten off more than he can chew when the women discover his duplicity and seek to turn the tables on him with their own troublemaking scheme. Meanwhile, Mistress Ford’s jealous husband Master Ford (Walton Wilson) complicates the matter with his own secret attempts to catch out his wife in the supposed affair. A caper of ridiculous proportions and hair-raising turns ensues.

In the play’s secondary storyline, the Page’s beautiful and desirable daughter Anne (Terra Chaney) works her way through a variety of suitors. She must choose between her mother’s favorite, the ludicrously French Dr. Caius (James Andreassi), her father’s, the dimwitted nephew of Justice Shallow (Grtacy Brown) named Slender (Micheal A. Crawford), and her actual love, Fenton (Stefani Kuo 郭佳怡). In short, the play ravels and unravels a tangled mess of interpersonal connections fit for any tea-time gossip circle.

There are choices to be made with any Shakespeare production as to whether to attempt to preserve aspects of the original production or update them to the modern day. Elm Shakespeare Company combines both approaches in a delicious melding of the modern and traditional. The set, designed by Karen Root, portrays a traditional English townhouse complete with balconies, stairs, and some contemporary touches in the form of a Black Lives Matter flag and a rainbow Pride flag. The costumes, by Rebecca Welles, echo that blending of new and old by pairing ruffs and corsets with tee-shirts and a fan with JUSTICE emblazoned in gold — a particularly popular touch with the audience, who applauded every time the fan unfurled.

Hints of modernity reverberate throughout the production, which feels surprisingly musical, even for the bard. To warm up the audience and set the tone for the play, a subset of the actors — Martine Fleurisma, Gracy Brown, Colleen Wilson (Bardolph), Hannah Leamon (Pistol), and Malachi Dré Beasley (Mr. Page) — perform a series of songs including ​“All Night Long” by Lionel Richie and ​“Rehab” by Amy Winehouse. The music continues throughout the play, augmenting and emphasizing the lyrical nature of Shakespeare’s prose. When reciting the love letters he sends to Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, Falstaff appears on the balcony lit in pink and accompanied by a soundtrack like an Usher music video. Pistol expounds his scheme to reveal Falstaff’s seduction plans to Master Ford accompanied by a hip-hop track. And in a triumph of absurdity, Ford monologues on his perceived betrayal to the tune of ​“Since You’ve Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson.

Such creative decisions certainly liven up the already lively Merry Wives of Windsor. They may also distract the audience from Shakespeare’s original script. The production appears to lose some faith in the ability of the original text to convey its humor on its own. At first glance, perhaps this is fair: The Merry Wives of Windsor is not one of Shakespeare’s more brilliant scripts. But there’s still a lot there: it’s punny, slapstick, and tongue-in-cheek. Certain trimmings felt unnecessary or even distracting, such as a dialogue on grammar that the production replaces with a song about verbs. Admittedly, both scenes are somewhat out of place in the play. But there would perhaps have been some merit in letting the text stand on its own two legs, rather than furnishing it with a pair of circus stilts.

Still, The Merry Wives of Windsor provides a spectacle with heart. Falstaff possesses the dubious charm of a drunken uncle at Thanksgiving dinner, and it is truly joyful to watch the women mess with him and befuddle his senses. If all the world’s a stage, this world is a puppet theater, and the women are the ones pulling the strings. As Ford puts it, ​“good plots, they are laid,” and the audience is granted the pleasure of watching them play out. And for a Shakespeare company that has always focused on the New Haven community, The Merry Wives of Windsor feels like the perfect choice: a play about the inner workings of a community, and how its members interact. The audience comes away with cheeks aching from smiling, like the iconic comedy mask itself, with rosy faces, open eyes, and grins that could light up the entire stage.

Elm Shakespeare’s production of The Merry Wives of Windsor runs in Edgerton Park through Sept. 3. Visit the company’s website for more information.