Day 14 of 38:38
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Of all 38 (39) plays, this is the one I'm not looking forward to revisiting. The Merry Wives of Windsor is my least favorite of all of the canon (or at least it is at this point. We'll see what I think at the end of this project). I have both read and seen Merry Wives. Since I am a Shakespeare Geek, I have to see all of them performed at some point. There's no question on that. So I saw it at the American Shakespeare Center last fall, because I figured if there was any company in the world that could make me enjoy Merry Wives, it would be the ASC. And they did. The production was quite enjoyable; but there was still this feeling of, "yeah, not really his best work."
It's practically entirely prose, there is no beautiful verse to speak of. There isn't really a plot, and much of the humor is antiquated and requires the reading of footnotes. Still, the work can be far more enjoyable on the stage than on the page as actors can embody absurd characters and make their ridiculousness more evident.
I also find the Falstaff in this play to have little to do with the Falstaff in the Henry IV plays. Sure, they have some things in common, but I don't find them to be the same person. In Merry Wives, Falstaff is a figure of complete and utter ridiculousness.
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Favorite Female Character:
Quickly
Favorite Male Character:
Ford
Laugh out loud:
Ford I will rather trust a Fleming with my butter, Parson Hugh the Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitae bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself.
Oh, making fun of the drinking habits of the Irish never gets old!
"That's what she said!":
Quickly Alas the day! good heaven, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.
How insulting:
Falstaff Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue!
Shakey loves his meta:
Mistress Ford Mistress Page, remember you your cue.
Mistress Page I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me.
Oh, misogyny:
Boys are silly:
Mistress Page Well, I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man. (okay, that's a great line)
Favorite Moment/Line:
I'm sorry, this is the first play in the canon so far where I haven't thought at least two or three times, "wow that's a great moment." So I don't really have one. But, I do rather enjoy the fact that instead of calling it "dirty laundry" as we do today, they called it "foul linen."
Monday, March 15, 2010
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C'mon, you have at least laugh a little at Will's potty humor:
ReplyDeleteIII, 3:
Eu. If there is one, I shall make two in the Companie.
Ca. If there be one, or two, I shall make-a-the turd!
I think it's interesting that you didn't fill in the "misogyny" tag. That's one of the nice things about this play: the female leads and color characters are genuinely honorable, not flaky or mean. The women out-smart the men. Even the ingenue has at least a tiny bit of character.
ReplyDeleteThin gruel for praise, I suppose. The hillbilly stereotypes aren't funny today, if they ever were.
But for a good line, how can you not at least like "I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage."
Only a linguist could love "Vengeance of Jenny's case! fie on her! never name her, child, if she be a whore," but I like it.
Oh, Tompurdue, I had forgotten about the pullet-sperm line. I probably read too quickly over it and didn't notice it this time through.
ReplyDeleteI have a certain amount of appreciation for that scene of Latin jokes, but I think it only works to a certain degree, even in performance.