A Not-So-Merry ‘Wives of Windsor’

FULLERTON —  Tradition has it that Queen Elizabeth I was so taken by Sir John Falstaff in “Henry IV” that she wanted to see him brought to life again in another play and that Shakespeare obliged by writing “The Merry Wives of Windsor.”

“This comedy was written at her command, and by her direction,” critic and playwright John Dennis, the first to record the notion, wrote in 1702. The queen was, apparently, impatient as well. “She was so eager to see it acted,” he continued, “that she commanded it to be finished in 14 days.”

Dennis made that assertion a century after “The Merry Wives of Windsor” appeared in print for the first time in 1602 (within a year or two of the original performance)--which would tend to cast some doubt on the story’s reliability.

The tradition got a boost in 1709, however, from the Bard’s first biographer, Nicholas Rowe, who added that the queen had commanded Shakespeare not only to “to continue [Falstaff] for one play more” but also “to show him in love.”

Whether the legend is accurate--most Shakespearean scholars accept it, if not the two-week deadline, as more or less true--there is no question that Shakespeare decided to have fun with Falstaff and some of the tavern regulars who served as his raffish retinue at the Boar’s Head--Pistol, Nym, Bardolph and Mistress Quickly--both in “Henry IV, Parts I and II” and in “Henry V.”

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Unfortunately, these characters are so unrecognizable in the ill-conceived production of “Merry Wives” at the Vanguard Theatre (through May 19) that if Queen Elizabeth I were alive to see it, they would be banished to the Tower of London and the play never allowed into the light.

The show--poorly staged by a director who seems not to have grasped his own doo-wop “concept” of a bobby-socks comedy updated to the 1950s--is as sadly out of place as a beached whale.

With a few passable exceptions--chiefly Holly Jeanne as a lively Mistress Quickly, Roger Shank as a nerdy Nym and John Gilbert as an amusingly gangsterish Master Brook, the disguised Frank Ford--”Merry Wives” is terribly acted and difficult to understand.

On the whole, the large cast gives wooden performances: Muggery alternates with incomprehensibility. Some actors sound like they have mouths filled with marbles; others simply swallow their words; still others can’t string words together without strangling them.

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The costuming is awkward: red and blue poodle skirts with white polka-dots for Mistress Margaret Page (Brenda Parks) and Mistress Alice Ford (Marcia Bonnitz), varsity sweaters, saddle shoes, bucks and even bowling shoes more or less randomly allotted among the rest of the cast; a couple of de rigueur motorcycle jackets, and for the entirely lackluster Falstaff (late replacement K. Robert Eaton), a naval officer’s hat and summer whites with a red-white-and-blue neckerchief, suggesting some sort of patriotic yachtsman.

The scenic design is cut-rate: Record-album covers are scattered on the walls, among them Glen Campbell’s “Greatest Hits,” Elvis Presley’s “Blue Hawaii” and Johnny Mathis’ “Greatest Hits.”

The sound design fades in and out with a few doo-wop tunes, as if to complete the rest of a very sketchy concept. High-school productions have more flair.

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Director Dan Blackley’s program notes aren’t much help, either.

“Why the 1950s for this play?” he asks. Because “Shakespeare was very much a playwright of his people and their times. . . . If ‘Merry Wives’ had been written in this century . . . he would have portrayed it . . . with the movements and feelings of our time” (Blackley’s emphasis).

By that logic we should all still be wearing poodle skirts and bobby socks, or at the very least the “I LIKE IKE” buttons and Nixonian cloth coats of 40 years ago. As any Generation X-er would put it: “Excuse me?”

Besides, when did you last see a stereotypical Beatnik playing bad bongo drums--one more instance of Blackley’s uninspired “concept” staging--unless it was on a rerun of “Gilligan’s Island?”

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Several years ago the Vanguard, operating on a shoestring then as now, showed the kind of promising ambition and consistency that made it the class of its field.

With founding artistic director Terry Gunkel gone, however--he left the troupe earlier this season for personal reasons and over differences about managerial, fund-raising and artistic priorities--this independent storefront troupe appears to have lost its bearings.

* “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” Vanguard Ensemble Theatre, 699A S. State College Blvd., Fullerton. Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 5 p.m. Ends May 18. $12-$14. (714) 526-8007. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

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K. Robert Eaton: Sir John Falstaff

Joseph Bowman: Fenton

Stu Eriksen: Justice Shallow

Chris Sullivan: Abraham Slender

John Gilbert: Frank Ford

Jeff Bickel: George Page

Don Ellis: Sir Hugh Evans

David Leeper: Doctor Caius

Kim Eichelberger: Host of the Garter

Clay Eichelberger: Bardolph/Simple/John

Mark Anthony: Pistol/Robert

Roger Shank: Nym/John Rugby

Marcia Bonnitz: Mistress Alice Ford

Brenda Parks: Mistress Margaret Page

Holly Jeanne: Mistress Quickly

Rebecca Doughty: Robin

Jonathan Goldberg: William Page

Nadia Aissi and Carley Millian: Fairies and Pixies

A Vanguard Theatre Ensemble production of a play by William Shakespeare. Directed by Dan Blackley. Producer: Wade Williamson. Lighting designer: Sharon L. Alexander. Costume coordinator: Sarah Lang. Sound designer: Howard Johnston. Scenic painter: Steve Kilian. Stage manager: Paul Gonzales.