Merry Wives, Shakespeare Theatre Company
Specificity is the soul of narrative. It's also the reason so many jokes don't make it four hundred years later--so much of humor depends on shared reference points and common cultural experiences that when you take the context away, the joke falls flat. And it's the reason that Jocelyn Bioh's adaptation of The Merry Wives of Windsor can succeed, moving the context firmly into modern day Harlem and linking the characters not to London suburbs but to distinct African cultural heritages.
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Felicia Curry and Oneika Phillips shine as the titular Wives, Madam Ford and Madam Page, managing both their families and the unwanted attentions of Jacob Ming-Trent's Falstaff, but the entire cast assembled by director Taylor Reynolds joyfully fills the stage and captures the audience's attention. Bioh's adaptation is primarily focused on streamlining the action, with occasional textual substitutions to fit the action to its setting, but there are occasional standout moments that it offers to the audience that go beyond a more traditional production.
Here, the wooing of the luminous Peyton Rowe's Anne Page plays out similarly in almost every feature to the original... except that her suitor Fenton is played by Latoya Edwards, and her parents' insistence that Anne marry men of their choosing plays very differently when they reject their daughter's choice to marry a woman. Their stubborn denial of Fenton and subsequent acceptance of her and their daughter's marriage becomes a very different kind of story with this one substitution in casting, established in Bioh's adpatation.
There is also a wonderful updating of the sequence in which the characters band together to trick Falstaff, disguised as fairies of the woods. Bioh creates for Mama Quickly (Kelli Blackwell) a rich new invocation of both spirits and ancestors that resonates deeply with the experiences of the Black community in America. The plot depends on these familiar characters being rendered unrecognizable during this sequences, and for once, in costumes designed by Ivania Stack that take inspiration from designs of Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Nigeria, the actors' shapes are truly transformed.
Reynolds' production for STC is full of joy, humor, and a strong sense of place and community. The specificity of the adaption brings out new opportunities for understanding a Shakespearean comedy that can often feel laborious in modern production. I had heard once that the opera Falstaff by Verdi was the best way to experience the story of The Merry Wives of Windsor, but it does feel like this adaptation by Bioh is a strong contender, especially as it remains within the same theatrical mode as the original. Reynolds' production above all stays lightning quick and feels effortless, which points to the very skilled hands at work on stage, and is highly recommended.
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