Merry Wives – Shakespeare in the Park

I thought that this play was really funny. The casting was great, the modern adaption was done well. Some of the sound effects were chosen perfectly. It was helpful that I knew what the story was about before watching the play. One of the audience members behind me explained what the show was about right before it started. If I didn’t get the plot synopsis beforehand, I think I would’ve been slightly confused in the beginning. This was my second attempt at watching the play. The first one was paused due to thunder and I ended up leaving the show early. The guy who played Falstaff was so goofy and really a treat to watch. I felt for him for sure since he was just trying to woo some people but got punished 3 separate times. The wives were so sly and good on them. I wasn’t too sure why there were so many gay couples highlighted in this play, like Anne Page and Fenton were both women and Doctor Caius and the person he ended up marrying was male, but I guess that is part of the adaptation. Technically, it doesn’t really matter – but I think the connotation was a bit different between the Fenton “wronging” Mr. Page when Fenton being a girl vs. being a boy. But I was ok with it. Some of the jokes throughout the play were great and I definitely thought the guy playing the drums would’ve hand a larger role, but it’s too bad that he didn’t. The stage construction was solid. I did not expect the whole wall to be able to be turned around to introduce the insides of the buildings. Overall, I’ve watched several Shakespeare in the Park productions, and I would rate this in the upper half of them. Albeit, I don’t have a great memory of them all, but I enjoyed it, so it must be better than some of the ones that I thought were simply good.