Meg Page

Meg and Alice

Meg Page is a faithful wife, caring mother and good friend.  Her honor is never questioned, and her integrity is intact.  She is level-headed and takes her prayers seriously.  She does her best by her family and expects them to do the same.

And perhaps she's a little bit bored.

She's such an interesting dichotomy.  While she seems so staid and above reproach, she comes up with many of the hare-brained schemes for her and Alice.  She uses her lofty position to their benefit.  There's as much a wild hare as a school marm in her.  That said decorum is of the utmost priority.  She'll allow Alice to roll around with the fat knight, Falstaff.

Her most important relationship is that with Alice--not her husband.  She has maybe two or three short sequences with him.  Most of her stage business is with Alice.  Establishing an easy rapport between the two actresses is paramount.  It's easy to think of them as Lucie and Ethel, with Meg Page taking the Ethel role.  But they may be more Bert and Ernie.

I love that Alice Ford and George Page are more similar.  They are each the more outgoing one of the two couples, and it makes sense that Meg would be attracted to both.

She is involved with the C-plot to a minor degree.  She has one wayward scene with her husband where she proclaims her preference for Dr. Caius.  She mentions it one other time in the play, before dispatching him in a single line to pick the girl in the green.  She seems to want her daughter to have a wealthy husband and one of good standing. more than what her daughter wants.  While this goes against our modern grain, and perhaps the successful relationship she has with her own husband, it is appropriate for the time of the play (both as written and as we are setting it).  Perhaps because she and George are so different, she understands that one can find love when one thinks it impossible.

Costumes:

--Simple dress in cool colors to match husband.  Blues or greens.

--Hat?

--Boots