The Jacobethan Theatre Workshop’s Shakespeare in the Park(ing Lot) summer series concludes with a production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. The Shakespeare comedy features one of the Bard’s greatest characters as well as the usual masquerading and comeuppances.The show has two remaining performances – Saturday, August 23, at 7:30 pm, and Sunday, August 24, at 6:00 pm.
Blustery blowhard John Falstaff (Justin Thompson) sees a way out of his financial troubles through the simultaneous seducing of the wives of two very well-off residents of Windsor. Mistresses Page (Liz Jahren) and Ford (Rosi Frater) get wind of his plan, and undertake a series of pranks to put the portly philanderer in his place. Master Ford (Michael Fontaine) also gets wind of Falstaff’s plan and undertakes a masquerade to test his wife’s fidelity. Soon everyone is having a merry old time at Sir Falstaff’s expense.
There’s a subplot involving Anne (Skyelar Clouse), the daughter of Master (Anthony Martin) and Mistress Page, and her three suitors – a French Doctor (Jean-Colin Cameron), a rich fool (Brendan Smith), and her true gentleman love (Levi Sterling).
Connecting the two threads is Mistress Quickly (Mariangela Pagán), who’s making quite a buck passing messages and arranging trysts among the various parties.
Director Lukas Raphael has a strong cast at work here with Thompson the perfect Falstaff. Jahren and Frater earn their laughs as the scheming wives as does Pagán as the go-between, and Cameron elicits chuckles as the French Physician (with an accent just this side of Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau.) There’s a lot of good, physical work being done here by the entire cast in support of the comedy…