Merry Wives of Winsor

So, I just got back from the Theatre@First production of "Merry Wives of Winsor."

One line summary is "It was good, go see it." But I'll go into more detail about what did, and didn't work. And one thing that sucks is that, when I talk about things that didn't work, they'll be things done by friends of mine, some of whom may be reading this. Just so you're not going to worry too much, I loved the acting; the things I had some problems with were some set design choices and some directorial choices. Given that the director and the set designer are both people I know and like, it's kind of tough to criticize, but I'll do my best. Even so, while reading anything critical, please note that I was roaring with laughter, as was the whole audience, and that one of my friends, who had also never seen the play before, was missing a really good show at the Avalon, with a band that he's not seen in ten years that he LOVES, and afterward was raving about how, as much as we wanted to see that band, seeing this play was a much better choice.

Anyway, this will be in no particular order, since I'm just sort of stream-of-consciousness-ing it as I'm thinking about what I saw.
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Oh, one more pedantic nitpicky thing about Merry Wives. . .

This is something of a pet peeve.

The word "doth" is pronounced "duth." It's the same word as "does", except that the "s" is pronounced as "th". You just pronounce it as if you were saying "does" but with a lisp.

This was beaten in to me, figuratively, when I was fourteen, by Ms. McCarthy of Arlington High School -- a holy terror of an English teacher, who didn't LITERALLY beat these facts into us, even though she was an ex-nun, because, as it was a public school, she wasn't allowed to whack us with rulers. Ms. McCarthy was one of the teachers I most hated in school, and respect most now -- I respected her then, too. She's the one that was claiming that "Merchant of Venice" wasn't anti-Semitic, and required us to write a term paper demonstrating that. I wrote a paper, with pages of endnotes and an appendix, showing that there was absolutely no way that Shakespeare COULDN'T have been anti-Semitic, and that OF COURSE the play was anti-Semitic.

This, of course, was a total defiance of what the teacher instructed us to do, and I was prepared to get an "F" on it.

Final page comment was "Excellent paper, well researched, well written, I disagree with everything you say, A-." The minus was for a couple typos and a subject-verb disagreement. Which were examples of TOTAL carelessness on my part, and she would have been well within her rights to knock it down to a B+ or even a B for that kind of sloppiness.

Anyway, in tribute to a hated English teacher whom I quite love, I pass along this pet peeve: it's pronounced "duth".

Oh, another thing about Merry Wives

While I was doing heavy lifting helping out a friend-and-relation move today, I suddenly put my finger on what stuck me as not QUITE perfect about Derek Henderson's Falstaff.

He's too good-looking.

Okay, this is one of those criticisms that I feel that, if this gets back to him, I don't think he's going to be TOO offended -- but I think that's what was hitting me.

I see Falstaff as far more dissipated, dissolute, maybe even a little bit verging on the sleazy. I see him as sort of having the REMNANTS of charm -- one of those guys who's WAY past their glory days. A little bit pathetic -- again, not TOO much; you ARE supposed to like him and all.

But Henderson is ACTUALLY good-looking. A good thing about that is that he carries himself with the self-confidence of an attractive guy who knows he's attractive, which is CLOSE to what I would want for Falstaff -- but it's not quite it. I would see Falstaff as the kind of guy who TRIES to carry himself with that kind of self-confidence, but actually, deep down, knows that he really ISN'T really all that and a bag of chips -- so there's more bluster, more false bravado.