Rehearsal Report--6/20

It was a rerun rehearsal of last week.  The actress playing Anne was not contacted to see if she could attend, so we confirmed old ground and started to get a little more in depth with the characters and individual moments throughout the B- and C- plot.  There was a lot of cleaning up and clarification of blocking.

Fenton

Fenton.  What a sap.

Fenton says himself that he first wooed Anne to get at her father's money.  But then he fell in love with her.  And oh, how he fell.

Anne Page

Anne's an interesting bird.  She's is the driving force of the B-plot in the show, and the only chance we have at a "happy ending".

At first blush she seems just the typical ingenue:  young, beautiful and destined for marriage.  And when you examine just her lines she doesn't have a lot to say.  She doesn't want to marry Dr. Cauis; she thinks Slender is a joke; she seems to have chosen Fenton.  But why Fenton?

So...Who Are The Merry Wives of Windsor?

This took a little bit longer than I expected.  Essentially there are 19 principal roles, with three of them going to children.  Figuring out the relationships and what makes the characters tick is a time consuming process.  Especially when there are 6 principals who do not have a lot of lines but a lot of stage time.

So let's dig right in and get to the cast breakdown. 

What is The Merry Wives of Windsor?

The Merry Wives of Windsor is one of Shakespeare's middle era comedies which I am going to say was written in 1600.  A far more detailed explanation for my choosing of that date will come in the immediate future.  There is much debate about the actual year of authorship, as there is with most dates for anything Shakespeare related.

I am quite in love the idea that this play was written at the request of Elizabeth I because she enjoyed the character of Falstaff so much and wanted to see a play with him in love. 

The play focuses on the oafish knight Sir John Falstaff and his attempts to woo two married women so that he may be a "kept" man.  A secondary plot revolves around Anne Page, the eldest daughter of one of the women Falstaff is wooing, and the three men that are vying for her affection. 

The comedy is broad, perhaps the broadest of any of the Shakespeare plays, and oftentimes borders on farcical slapstick.  Many contemporary scholars/directors liken it to a sitcom; one of the popular "adapted settings" is that of a 1950's/early 60's sitcom setting.