Last Thursday night at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Sir John Falstaff got entrance applause.
Folks were not applauding for the actor; with all due respect to the excellent Jason Simon, he’s not a celebrity. They were responding to the character and, for sure, to the visual presentation thereof by the set and costume designer Max Jones. Not bad, when you think about it, for a personality created by William Shakespeare in 1596 or 1597, customized to provide some portly comic relief in “Henry IV, Part 1.”
Legend has it that Good Queen Bess was so enamored with the rotund knight that she commanded a play wherein he would be seen in love, which really means she wanted to sit in her finery and watch his humiliation. Nobody would write a Falstaff now, with all of the fat-shaming baked into his persona. But there can be no question that he is a survivor. One might charitably say he is “grandfathered in,” such is in place in comedic history.
Anyway, “The Merry Wives of Windsor” was Shakespeare’s way of bringing back Falstaff and sticking him in the middle of an exceptionally lively Elizabethan sitcom, all about Sir John’s flailing attempts at seducing two perfectly respectable married women, Mistress Page (Ora Jones) and Mistress Ford (Issy van Randwyck), resulting in a less-than-impressive display of marital trust from Master Ford (Timothy Edward Kane). Meanwhile, there is a little subplot involving the the romantic ministrations of one Fenton (Sam Bell-Gurwitz) who has to fend off one Slender (Alex Weisman) when it comes to acquiring the love of teenaged Anne Page (Olivia Pryor) replete with some gender-bending confusion on the way to the community humiliation of Sir John (who takes it well), the admonition of Master Ford for his foolishness and the celebration of the nice young people once Anne’s dad, Master Page (Chiké Johnson) learns that true love is not subject to parental constraint.
Although its roots are medieval, “Merry Wives” is certainly a foundational play for Moliere, Goldoni, British pantomimes, European comic opera, American musical comedy and network sitcoms. That said, it’s hardly at the top of the list of Shakespeare’s most-produced plays. Few folks would say they are eager to see another production. If you want verbosity, you’ve got “Much Ado About Nothing,” slapstick, “Comedy of Errors,” whimsy, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and comedy combined with sadness, “Twelfth Night.” Moreover, since comedic references are generally more time-bound than those pertaining to matters tragic or historical, “Merry Wives”, for all its simplicity, has some real mouthfuls of the archaic for the audience to parse.
All that said, it’s to the credit of the British director Phillip Breen that he has forged a very entertaining and genuinely funny “Merry Wives,” given a kind of fin-de-20th-century gloss (Sex Pistols, pool table, Union Jacks, clingy clothing and generally bad fashion), but not in some invasive conceptual way. Breen had a very successful outing with this play in 2012 for the Royal Shakespeare Company and he knows all its contours. I imagine he enjoyed working with these top-drawer Chicago actors, and vice versa.
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In essence, this is an example of how Shakespearean comedy responds to detailed direction that is carefully toned. The show is very cleverly cast, and total pros like Jones, Kane and Weisman get off very solid laughs while van Randwyck is quite deliciously zany throughout. Much further amusement also flows from Paul Oakley Stovall’s aggrieved Justice Shallow and Nick Sandys’ Sir Hugh Evans, who comes with a Welsh accent that is like taking a gulp of leek soup.
Falstaff might seem like a gift to a character actor, and so he is, but he comes with some booby traps, all of which Simon avoids by ensuring we’re empathetic toward his pathetic attempts at seduction, but not so empathetic that it all comes off as sad when it is supposed to be funny. This is an excellent Falstaff, rightly centered by Breen at the very core of the play.
Truth be told, when Sir John is off the stage, the action can get a bit ponderous, notwithstanding the efforts of these fine performers. We could all have used at least 10 minutes shorn from this 2 hours and 45 minutes of running time (especially in Act 1), which would have meant a little bit more cutting of that which is clever, but not entirely essential. Then again, Breen is an apologist for this play and I am guessing it would have been too agonizing for him to hit the delete key. So, the full monty is what sits on Navy Pier.
As Sir John puts it, “When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased.”
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic
Review: “Merry Wives of Windsor” (3.5 stars)
When: Through May 3
Where: Chicago Shakespeare’s Courtyard Theater on Navy Pier, 800 E. Grand Ave.
Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Tickets: $65-$122 at 312-595-5600 and chicagoshakes.com