We’ve been coming to Shakespeare & Co.’s performances for over twenty years, I believe. We have rarely been disappointed — their attempt to get around the inconvenient sexism of The Taming of the Shrew didn’t work — and we’ve been delighted this year. Hamlet and The Merry Wives of Windsor were both excellent, although The Merry Wives was — surprise! — funnier.

The Hamlet had some stunt casting: Jason Asprey in the lead, with his real-life mother (and company founder) Tina Packer as his mother. It would have been a mere stunt except both are wonderful actors, and Asprey played a resolute, believable Hamlet. He’s grieving, angry, and set on revenge. This was a more visceral and affecting version, not as mannered and self-conscious as many of the other Hamlets I’ve seen. It was also not as funny as some of them: Polonius is often played as more of a fool, which can lessen the obviousness of the of love holding that doomed family together. But the visibility of the love among the various and overlapping families made this a more moving version.

In an inspired change, which also lowered the number of required players, the traveling troupe of actors consists of a single thespian who enlists the king and queen to act in the play within the play. The folded over inwardness and outwardness was fascinating. And there was another benefit: Asprey gets to instruct Gertrude — his real mother and one of the great Shakespeare directors — in the basics of acting.

Last night we saw The Merry Wives, and it was hilarious, full of the funny business Shakespeare & Co. brings to the comedies. Malcolm Ingram was a fine Falstaff, full of himself and, given his stage girth, there’s lots to fill. Jonathan Croy chewed the scenery appropriately as the French Dr. Caius, and Dave Demke pushed pink-plumed foppery as far as it would go. But Corinna May and especially Elizabeth Aspenlieder really shined as the merry wives. The play is a trifle — the love interest is resolved pretty much offstage — but it is a trifle with the women firmly control.

(By the way, Harold Bloom’s chapter on Merry Wives in Shakespeare and the Invention of the Human is unintentionally funny because he is so besotted with Falstaff that Shakespeare’s use of the character as a buffoon drives him apoplectic.)

[Tags: shakespeare reviews]

Categories: Uncategorized dw