The Summer Repertory 2005

“We will thrive, lads, we will thrive.”
The Merry Wives of Windsor, Sir John Falstaff, Act I, iii

In spite of being one of Shakespeare’s funniest and most entertaining comedies, The Merry Wives of Windsor is not without its share of controversy: even the play’s title has been disputed. The two entries in the Stationer’s Register for January 18, 1602 call the play, “Sir John Falstaff and The Merry Wives of Windsor.” Moreover, the first edition published in 1602 reads: “Syr John Falstaffe, and the merrie Wiues of Windsor.” His name disappeared from later editions of the title, most notably the Folio text of 1623, and out of reverence for that venerated collection, it never again returned. It is an ironic bit of literary comeuppance that the title of Falstaff’s play now lacks his very name.

Scholars have not always afforded Merry Wives an elevated position in the realm of critical opinion. This is undoubtedly due to the traditions surrounding the play’s creation. In 1702, John Dennis adapted the play under the title The Comical Gallant: or the Amours of Sir John Falstaffe. In his dedication to this adaptation, Dennis claimed that “[t]his comedy was written at [the queen’s] command, and by her direction, and she was so eager to see it Acted, that she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days.” Seven years later, Nicholas Rowe further wrote in his own introduction that the queen “was so well pleased with the admirable character of Falstaff, in the two parts of Henry IV , that she commanded him to continue it for one play more, and to show him in love.”

Setting aside for a moment that Merry Wives can hardly be said to show Falstaff in love, how could two unsubstantiated claims gain so strong a grip in dramatic folklore? One answer derives from scholars’ attempts to date the play. Because Falstaff appears in Henry IV, Part I (1597) and Henry IV, Part II (1598), and his death is announced in Henry V (1599), some surmised that it would be illogical for Merry Wives to have been written after Falstaff’s death was announced; therefore, it followed that the play was written prior to 1599. Because there are claims of a Garter Feast attended by Queen Elizabeth at Westminster on April 23, 1597, scholars married this morsel to the 1700s story, and more than 100 years after the play was written the tale of its creation was born.

It’s been a fantastic rumor. Merry Wives is in fact categorized as a “Garter play” due to the celebration of the Order of the Garter in the last scene of the Folio version. Furthermore, some say the vast amount of prose in the play supports the theory of a hasty composition. It is true that no other Shakespearean play has so much prose: only about 12% of Merry Wives is written in verse, as compared to As You Like It (45%), Twelfth Night (41%), and Much Ado About Nothing (31%). But as scholar Giorgio Melchiori astutely observes, “All of these plays were written between 1598 and 1601, where prose marks a distinction in the social status of the speakers or between comic and serious scenes.” Because Merry Wives is the only play in the cannon that gives attention to the portrayal of middle class life in the English country, is it not possible that the abundance of prose is a stylistic choice rather than merely a sign of rushed construction?

Perhaps it was not before but after killing off Falstaff in Henry V that Shakespeare wrote Merry Wives, making amends for the broken promise given in the Epilogue of Henry IV, Part II, to “continue the story with Sir John in it.” The play is set chronologically between Henry IV Part II and Henry V, and what is interesting about this placement is that at the end of Henry IV Part II, the king tells Falstaff and his companions, “Not to come near our person by ten mile. For competence of life I will allow you, that lack of means enforce you not to evil.” As Melchiori notes, “What other ‘competence of life’ could be offered a discredited and impecunious knight except a Crown pension and a place among those who were popularly know as the poor knights of Windsor? They were in fact retired soldiers who had to reside in Windsor, attending church twice a day, kept by a small pension and a clothing allowance. The status of Falstaff in Windsor as a ‘poor knight’ is never openly mentioned but is implicit in his financial distress and in what is said of him by the other characters, and would be immediately recognized by a contemporary audience.”

So why is it important to question the extraordinary rumors surrounding the play’s creation? In part because these rumors can diminish what is truly a remarkable theatrical achievement by relegating it to the category of a pot-boiler. Sir John Falstaff is an inspired icon of world literature. He is an archetypal persona and a brilliant dramatic creation. His play shows English middle class life with verve and hilarity, joyously celebrating the English language. Above all else, it is a play whose reputation should not be diminished. Rather, it deserves to thrive.

Tony: Everybody’s got a family.
Alice: But not like mine.
You Can’t Take It With You, Act I, ii

“You Can’t Take It With You, Act 1, scene 1: The home of Martin Vanderhof – just around the corner from Columbia University, but don’t go looking for it.” So begins the 1937 Pulitzer Prize winning play by Moss Hart and George Kaufman. The same year that Robert Frost won the Pulitzer for poetry and Margaret Mitchell claimed her prize for Gone With the Wind, Kaufman and Hart’s exceptional contribution to the American theatre was recognized as a theatrical triumph a full decade before the advent of the Tony Award. The play is one of the most produced titles in the country year after year on the amateur stage, but due in part to the large casting requirements, this wonderful comedy does not grace the boards of our professional stages nearly often enough.

Although the play is an ensemble piece, great actors have always been attracted to the role of Grandpa. Lionel Barrymore played the part in Frank Capra’s 1939 Academy Award winning film, for which Columbia Pictures paid $200,000 for the script rights. When crippling arthritis and a hip injury cost Barrymore the use of his legs shortly before filming, the script was modified so that the character had a broken leg, and the legendary actor played the role on crutches. Art Carney, Harry Morgan, Finlay Curry, Robert Ober, Donald Moffatt and Jason Robards have all played the famous family patriarch.

Of the setting, the authors write, “The room we see is what is customarily described as a living room, but in this house the term is something of an understatement. The every-man-for-himself room would be more like it.” It is precisely this adventurous spirit of joyous abandon that sets the stage for a wild theatrical adventure. The play is firmly set in the 1930s, and topical references from that era mark the dialogue. Olga, the Grand Russian Duchess, speaks of her job in Childs’ Restaurant, a chain of inexpensive eateries in the New York region, the McDonald’s of its day; she mentions Hattie Carnegie’s, a Macy’s style department store, named for its founder, a famous fashion designer whose trainees included a couple of fellows named Neiman and Marcus. Rumors of Rasputin’s love life and the Czarist court are within recent memory; people still dance a lively Polish dance called the Mazurka; and thin pancakes rolled with cottage cheese or fruit filling, called blintzes, are prepared in the family kitchen.

Although the play nostalgically captures an era gone by, its message is by no means confined to the past. The idea of living life to the fullest and not letting the good times slip away are themes reminiscent of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, published in 1854: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear, nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow of life…”

Of course, in You Can’t Take It With You, Paul Sycamore and Mr. De Pinna suck the marrow out of life by making highly explosive fireworks in their basement. Thoreau himself had a similar flammable experience. Although people may not remember that he and a friend accidentally burned down 300 acres of Walden Woods in 1844, I for one would like to think that somehow, Grandpa would understand.

Daniel Hahn is Great Lakes Theater Festival’s Director of Education and has been with the Festival since 1995 when he served as an actor-teacher. Mr. Hahn holds an M.A. in theater from The University of Akron.