Get your Falstaff on with “The Merry Wives of Windsor” at the Utah Shakespeare Festival

Many of the plays at this year’s Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City speak to the season’s theme of tolerance and inclusivity, often leading to fairly serious depictions of discrimination and even hate. But sometimes you just need to have a little fun. “The Merry Wives of Windsor” is the answer.

“Merry Wives” is William Shakespeare’s beloved situational comedy, written four centuries before modern domestic sitcoms dominated must-see TV. As director Paul Barnes writes in this season’s program, it’s his hope that the play might provide “abundant comfort and joy for Festival audiences during the turbulent times of 2018.”

His hope is fulfilled. “Merry Wives” is overflowing with “abundant comfort and joy.” After all, it’s a play featuring that lovable lout, Sir John Falstaff, the man who brought comedic relief to many of Shakespeare’s history plays. He’s up to his old tricks again here, trying to woo two different married women in order to access their husbands’ money.

The ladies are having none of that. They decide to play a few tricks on him instead. Hilarity ensues.

Yes, there’s much more to the plot than that, but it’s not all that consequential. What’s important about this play is that it’s fun and it’s funny. John Ahlin, who played Falstaff in past USF productions, is absolute perfection as the errant knight. This is his play, and you’d better bet Falstaff knows it.

Ahlin’s face lights up with nearly every emotion imaginable, his eyes telling as many stories as his tongue. He’s also a master of physical humor, exaggerating the effects of his mass for comedic effect but also defying it with surprisingly agile dancing and prancing.

Other actors also stand out, including Michael Elich with his caricatural French accent as Doctor Caius, Geoffrey Kent with his own caricatural Scottish brogue as Francis Ford in disguise as Mr. Brook, the ever-majestic Leslie Brott with her Meryl Streep-like command of any role she undertakes as Mistress Quickly, Jim Poulos with his delicious delivery and diction (“He gives me the potions and the motions”) as Host of the Garter Inn, and Michael A. Harding’s unassuming but ever-present wit as Sir Hugh Evans, the Welsh parson.

Yet the only actors to rival Ahlin for ownership of this play are those who play the title characters, the “Merry Wives” themselves, rethought here by Barnes as suffragettes. Stephanie Lambourn as Mistress Margaret Page and Tarah Flanagan as Mistress Alice Ford are consistently entertaining in their hoodwinks and hijinks. Their fooling with the clueless Falstaff is giggle-inducing, and their celebratory girl-power handclaps easily win the audience over to Team Merry Wives.

But equally important to the acting is Barnes’ visionary take on the play. It has been modernized (somewhat) to an early 20th-century setting. It’s not just the scenery and costumes that have been updated, it’s also the entire feel of the play. Barnes made the surprising but enjoyable decision to add period-appropriate music to the play, giving it an early Broadway feel with delightful songs like “School Days” (1907) and “Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)” (1892) performed by the company.

Scenic designer Apollo Mark Weaver and costume designer Bill Black also deserve plentiful plaudits for their respective work, including the lush stage dressing that includes abundant greenery, fun props like a canoe and a two-seater bicycle (if you have the song in the play, you have to have the bike in the play), and some truly lovely threads.

All of these exquisite details perfectly match Barnes’ own inspired stylistic choices to enhance the solid acting and the lighthearted fun of Shakespeare’s script for a truly enchanting play.

The Utah Shakespeare Festival’s production of “The Merry Wives of Windsor” continues through Sept. 8 in the Engelstad Shakespeare Theatre at Southern Utah University’s Beverley Center for the Arts in Cedar City. Tickets are $20–$75. Visit bard.org or call (800) 6752-9849.

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