Over my two decades of life as a theater critic, I’ve
seen directors take all sorts of liberties with the works of William
Shakespeare. While some were quite creative and entertaining, others caused me to
question the sanity of the artists involved in such a debacle.
So when I received promotional material recently from Ferndale’s
Slipstream Theatre Initiative promoting its next show, it
did what any good PR piece should do: It successfully lured me into securing
tickets for this past Saturday evening’s performance of “The Merry Wives of
Miami.” So, yes, I’m apparently a sucker for punishment, as the show’s concept disguises
The Bard’s popular comedy “The Merry Wives of Windsor” as an episode of TV’s “The
Golden Girls.”
It has the potential for disaster written all over it,
doesn’t it?
But based on past experience with Slipstream, I went in
with an open mind. After all, artistic director Bailey Boudreau and his creative
cohorts have had much success with other such oddball concepts.
This pairing, though, truly intrigued me, since it’s one
that seems far more logical than other Shakespearean experiments I’ve endured
over the years.
For starters, “Merry Wives” is The Bard’s only play set entirely
in England, in the middle-class town of Windsor. It features two wives,
Margaret Page and Alice Ford, who have great fun putting their husbands in
their place at the expense of the boastful Sir John Falstaff (previously seen
in the “Henry IV-V" dramas), who’s come to town and plans to woo the above-named
women.
Can’t you see Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia, sitting
in their Miami kitchen eating cheesecake, gleefully scheming to make a fool out
of Stan and one of his hair-brained schemes just like director Bailey did? As
any “Golden Girls” aficionado knows, this award-winning sitcom ran for seven seasons
on NBC beginning in 1985. Therefore, Bailey and his co-conspirators present
their tale as the opening episode of the imaginary eighth season. So then the question: How successful was the Slipstream team in smooshing
one well-known comedy into the other?
It may not be perfect, but it sure is fun!
For starters, other than the opening scene that sets the
stage for the audience – you can almost imagine Sophia saying, “Picture it: Miami.
1992” – the adaptation is primarily the unadulterated words of William Shakespeare.
His script is pared down to a 70-minute running time that focuses on
the comedy’s main plot. The resulting story makes sense; if you’ve never seen
the original, you won’t be lost for lack of what’s been cut.
Costuming by Tiaja Sabrie was spot-on perfect, which
immediately pulled me into the world of “The Golden Girls.” And whether or not
their costumes and wigs inspired them, I don’t know, but Luna Alexander, Jan
Cartwright, Linda Rabin Hammell and Mandy Logsdon surely looked their parts (Blanche,
Dorothy, Sofia and Rose, respectively) and carried themselves accordingly. Hammell
had great fun channeling Estelle Getty’s Sophia. Especially on target, though,
was Alexander, who perfectly captured not only Blanche’s body language, but
also her unique vocal characteristics, both of which flowed quite naturally
throughout the evening. (That last part wasn’t as easy for the other actresses,
though, as the voices of their counterparts are not nearly as distinctive, nor
is The Bard’s dialogue always easily manipulated in order to match the Girls’
personal rhythms.)
Of the men, Patrick O’Lear’s Falstaff was immediately
recognizable as badly toupee'd Stan, Dorothy’s ex-husband. And Ryan Ernst as the jealous Master
Ford played his role with the same glee and expertise as I’ve come to expect
from him.
Where the show stumbled, however, was
with the performances of some of the younger, less experienced performers. For
example, if a foreign accent is to be used, every word spoken must be clearly
and concisely enunciated and delivered at a speed at which it can be
understood. (This is true even when speaking typical American dialects, but doubly
so when not.) As such, talking too fast AND indistinctly renders the dialogue
nearly if not totally incomprehensible. Conversely, talking too slow can cause
the show’s pacing to come crashing down. And finally, it helps to have all your
lines memorized. All of this was such a problem that my guest – and he’ll kill
me for publicly saying this – actually made the decision to take a nap during
the show rather than to continue struggling to follow the plot, which had
eluded him up to that point. Yes, Shakespeare can be difficult sometimes for
our ears and brains to absorb, but thespians don’t need to complicate things
and make it worse.
(As an aside, a running gag that I suspect goes over the
heads of many a patron actually earned a semi-loud groan/laugh from me. Hammell’s
character [Mistress Quickly] forgets a line, so she consults the script, which
she kinda/sorta hides and carries with her. In real life, Getty had trouble
remembering her lines, and so cue cards were strategically placed for her,
and she’d write her lines on various props she’d use. Unfortunately, Getty died
in 2002 from Lewy body dementia, an Alzheimer-like disease that may have
started during her time on the show. So is this simply an in-joke, a nod to the
reality of Getty’s experience on “The Golden Girls,” or just an innocent bit to have some fun with? Or is it not in good
taste? As someone who has observed the realities of dementia first hand, I can’t
decide on which side of the positive/negative divide this otherwise funny bit
falls.)
Music from the TV series used to move the audience in to
and out of scenes added to the overall concept.
The Bottom Line: While it’s certainly not one of
Slipstream’s best productions, “The Merry Wives of Miami” – with some much-needed
clean up and polish – has the potential to become a very entertaining night out
at the theater.
* * * * *
"The Merry Wives of Miami" runs through Aug. 4. For complete show details, CLICK HERE!
Photo credits: Jan Cartwright Photography
Top: Jan Cartwright, Mandy Logsdon, Luna Alexander
Bottom: Linda Rabin Hammell
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