A funny, slapstick ‘Merry Wives of Windsor’
Verrrrrry interrrrrresting. Capital Classics’ Greater Hartford Shakespeare Festival’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” served up on the lawn of the University of St. Joseph through July 28, appears to be channeling the “Laugh-In” a comedy hit of half a century ago.
The set resembles the TV show’s brightly colored multiwindowed Joke Wall. The characters are designed by funny voices, colorful jackets or big hats. Jokes are followed by exaggerated reactions. An actual slapstick — a wooden paddle designed to make maximum noise when it hits somebody’s posterior — is used. The sight gags are incessant.
Somehow, the 1960s varietyshow stylings seem more outdated than the 16th-century silliness of Shakespeare. But the show remains an amusing battle-ofthe-sexes diversion based on the old tropes of oblivious self-important dim-bulb men and their much smarter wives.
With “Merry Wives,” Connecticut has gone full Falstaff. The rotund scoundrel appeared in three Shakespeare plays and is given a splendid eulogy in a fourth. All have been found on local stages in recent months. Hartford Stage did “Henry V”
(the eulogy one) in October. Connecticut Repertory Theatre ended the UConn school year with a double feature of “Henry IV Part One” and “Henry IV Part Two.”
Capital Classics takes an interesting tack with this grand, harddrinking, delusional fool. While plenty of the other folks in this production are cartoonish stereotypes, Falstaff is comparatively underplayed. Yes, Nick Roesler (a Glastonbury resident and adjunct professor in the Connecticut College theater department) has stuffed his shirt to suggest Falstaff’s prodigious belly, but his short trimmed beard is his own, not the scraggly facial clump of