MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR: Shakespeare, RSC till 25 Jan 2003
MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR: William Shakespeare
Swan Theatre, Stratford
Runs: 2h 50m, one interval, till 25 Jan, eves 7.30, mats 1.30
Review: Rod Dungate, 31 October 2002
A play to savour, inspired setting, gorgeous. And more warming than a glass of mulled wine.
What a delight! This quite funny play is born again as a play to savour warm, human, at times very funny and in the inspired 1940s post-war setting, gorgeous to look at and an apparent cousin to the Whitehall farces.
Director Rachel Kavanaugh seems to have pulled off a marvellous trick with her team. On one hand the company manages to sit back on the play allowing it a naturalness of tone (particularly in its updated setting) that matches perfectly with the open and intimate Swan staging. On the other hand there are some outrageously large performances that give rise to some of the funniest moments I've seen for a long time.
Greg Hicks, for instance, as Frenchman, Dr Caius, adopts a French accent that makes Peter Sellers look like a Chekhovian actor. And when Hicks is with Alison Fiske (Mistress Quickly the housekeeper) a larger than life charlady, I virtually fell out of my seat. I confess to understanding only about a third (or as Caius has it, a 'turd') of what Hicks is saying, but the wonderful thing is that the other characters are clearly having the same trouble. It's quite brilliant.
The 1940s setting is bang-on for deeper reasons than just the look. WIVES is an unusual play for Shakespeare, looking as he is at newly emerging groups of people middle classes and professional classes in a kind of suburbia. After WWII great social changes were happening again. The two societies reflect each other.
MERRY WIVES is driven along by two engaging women, Mistresses Ford and Page. And what a bonus Claire Carrie and Lucy Tregear are: they create two women gently different from each other with a bond between them that we just know goes back to their primary school days. They are immediately endearing and their shared laughter infectious.
Richard Cordery's Sir John Falstaff is a great towering bulk of a man, he hauls himself around dwarfing most of those he comes into contact with. It's impossible not to like Cordery's Falstaff we know he's never a serious threat to the two Windsor Wives. His description of being tipped into the Thames with the dirty linen 'and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking' as he embellishes as the scene moves on it is a masterpiece of comic storytelling.
This is even a production in which the young lover Fenton counts. Mrs Quickly says of him that he 'has a kind heart'. Chuk Iwuji's leather jacketed ex-GI replete with Lucky Strikes has a kind face and manner too and we truly care that he should marry young Anne Page. Which of course, in a wonderful Shakespearian scene of heart-warming reconciliation of everybody with everybody, he does.
Over the coming dark and cold winter months this production will be more tasty than a glass of mulled wine.
Robert Shallow: David Killick
Abraham Slender: Adam Kay
Peter Simple, Karl Morgan
Sir John Falstaff: Richard Cordery
Robin: Lindsey Fawcett
Bardolph: Ciaran McIntyre
Nym: Richard Copestake
Pistol: Kieron Jecchinis
George Page: Simon Coates
Meg Page: Lucy Tregear
Anne Page: Hannah Young
William Page: David Jowett, Daniel Ciotkowski
Frank Ford: Tom Mannion
Alice Ford: Claire Carrie
Sir Hugh Evans: Michael Gardiner
Host of the Garter: Patrick Romer
Dr Caius: Greg Hicks
John Rugby: James O'Donnell
Mistress Quickly: Alison Fiske
Fenton: Chuk Iwuji
Robert: Richard Copestake
John: Kieron Jecchinis
Lady of Windsor: Kate Best
Her Daughter: Hannah Jowett/ Florence Carruthers
Green Fairy: Damian Storey/ Ben Chase
White Ghost: Edward Turner/ Jake Whittingham
Director: Rachel Kavanaugh
Staging: Peter McKintosh and Ti Green
Set and Costumes: Peter McKintosh
Music: Terry Davies
Movement: Scarlett Mackmin
Sound: Gregory Clarke
Dialect Coach: Charmian Hoare
Voice: Andrew Wade, Jeannette Nelson
2002-11-02 14:15:01