Host of the Garter

The Star and Garter Inn

The Host of the Garter Inn is an interesting character.  The owner and operator of the Garter, Windsor's pub, the Host is affable, warm, and a bit of a prankster.  I'm most excited because this is a role that could be played by a woman, increasing the adult principal women's roles to four.

One of the most interesting things about the Host is the very distinct speech pattern.  There's a lot of repetition of phrases or entire sentences within a speech.  There's also a lot of talking in short phrases, and even more of hyperbolic talking.  I wonder if Shakespeare patterned the speech pattern after the actual Host of the Garter when he was writing the play; I've not encountered such a distinct speaking pattern in Shakespeare before.

There's no doubt that aside from George Page, the Host is the warmest and most welcoming character in the show.  This of course fits the trade as the chieftain of a place of business specializing in physical comfort.  As I am deciding how to use this physical space and the people that work there, I am seeing it more as brothel, and the Host being the madame of the establishment.  One of the things I like about setting it in the American West is that such places were de rigeur and had little stigma attached to them.  The work there is just that work.

I like that that the Host is accepted by all of the people in the town, including the "upstanding" citizens like Sir Hugh Evans, Dr. Caius, Justice Shallow and George Page.  And he likes all his fellow citizens, even to the point of liking Falstaff.  I find it interesting that the Host feels comfortable enough with all of them that pulling pranks (like sending Evans and Caius to two different dueling places) is not out of the ordinary.  And the Host is so well liked that Page and Shallow, the two most "upstanding" of all the characters want to go along with the Host to see how the trick is played out.

This, of course, leads us to the dreaded German Duke business and Evans and Caius' revenge on the Host.  What's telling here is the undercurrent of money throughout.  They attack the Host in purely financial terms--the loss of some of the Host's horses.  And the Host is swayed by money throughout the sequence.  He wants to bilk the three Germans out of their cash, and is only drawn out of his funk when Fenton offers to pay him.  This adds to my thoughts of the Host actually being the Hostess and the madame of the brothel.  She's in it for the money.

It is the Host's speech pattern that is most fascinating to me.  Why does he repeat certain phrases over and over again?  It's not befuddlement, because he will use a series of evocative synonyms in a sequence of 3 or 4 when talking about the same thing.  It's almost as if he has gotten a word a day calendar, and has been memorizing them all.  At the very least, he is a man who wants to overcome his humbler (or perhaps shameful) beginnings, and thinks the way to do that is through sounding intelligent.  This is a fascinating character trait, and one that I think is unique to the canon.  There are plenty of pedants--those who tout their intelligence to a fault--but none who are striving to overcome their lack of it.  Counterpoint this to Mistress Quickly who makes malaprops almost every time she is on stage, and there's something there worth exploring further, especially in light of Act IV, Scene 1.

Madame Dora DuFran

I found a great role model for our own Hostess of the Garter, Dora DuFran, a woman who worked her way up to the top, eventually married a man in Deadwood, and wanted to have a place "where you could bring your mother".  Seems respectable and quite the dame; she eventually franchised and had businesses in four different cities. 







Costumes:
--Shiny, fluffy dress
--Glove, boots, feather?