Our first semblance of the return to showgoer normality comes not on Broadway but up in Central Park. The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park has resumed, after a dormant 2020, with Jocelyn Bioh’s merrily localized transplantation of the Bard’s Merry Wives of Windsor.
The Merry Wives in question are not from the environs of Windsor Castle, mind you; they live above a laundromat on 116th Street, although the doorway of their nondescript building does indeed have “The Windsor” engraved on the lintel. But no matter. The wholesale tinkering by Bioh and director Saheem Ali serve to bolster the material, transforming one of Shakespeare’s lower-drawer offerings into a rollicking evening at the Delacorte. Falstaff, in this instance, enters wearing a Poetic Justice t-shirt and gobbling from a box of Trix, a breakfast food not likely on the prop table when old Will dashed off his comedy in 1597 or so. Which starts things off on the right, Reeboked foot.
Call it “Desperate Housewives of Harlem,” perhaps; although nothing about this Merry Wives is desperate. Except, that is, for the rotund Falstaff. (It is said that Queen Elizabeth—the other one—so liked this character in Henry IV Part I that she commanded her favorite scribe to write the debauched knight a play of his own.) Sure, Shakespeare created a celebrated character in Falstaff, but Bioh and the actor Jacob Ming-Trent catapult him into joyfully contemporary buffoonery. Those who delighted in the actor’s performance as a loquacious dog named Odyssey in the Public’s 2014 production of Suzan-Lori Parks’s Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3) will be doubly pleased to remake his acquaintance in such fine form.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Merry Wives features parallel plots. The down-on-his-luck Falstaff determines that he should seduce not one but two local wives, Mistress—or rather, Madam—Ford (Susan Kelechi Watson of This Is Us) and Madam Page (Pascale Armand of Eclipsed). Both of whom have very-much-present husbands (Gbenga Akinnagbe of To Kill a Mockingbird and Kyle Scatliffe of The Color Purple), and neither of whom are at all interested in trysting. The daughter of the latter, Anne Page (Abena of Bioh’s excellent School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play), is meanwhile being courted by three suitors, with Fenton (MaYaa Boateng of Fairview) being the obvious choice and ultimate winner. Not the least of the evening’s attractions is Farai Malianga, who serves as friendly interlocutor with drum, warming up the audience as twilight sets in over Belvedere Lake.
To say that director Ali (resident director at The Public) has assembled a stageful of talent is an understatement. Happily, he sets them all firing sparks in tandem. He also pulls exceptional work from his design team. Beowulf Boritt provides the Harlem street scene, with several interiors trundling in from time to time. Dede Ayite’s costumes start with streetwear but gradually incorporate gloriously-colorful accents which overtake our eyes. Meanwhile, lighting designer Jiyoun Chang takes advantage of the Central Park woodland to conjure up what becomes an astonishingly vibrant palette.
All of which makes for an altogether merry Merry Wives, on display for as many lucky New Yorkers as can get tickets through the pandemic-mandated digital lottery. Enter early, enter often, and pray for clear midsummer nights.
Merry Wives opened August 9, 2021, at the Delacorte Theater and runs through September 18. Tickets and information: publictheater.org
