{"id":320018,"date":"2021-08-10T05:19:37","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T02:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/shakespeare-in-the-park-makes-hilarious-return-with-merry-wives\/"},"modified":"2021-08-10T05:19:37","modified_gmt":"2021-08-10T02:19:37","slug":"shakespeare-in-the-park-makes-hilarious-return-with-merry-wives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/shakespeare-in-the-park-makes-hilarious-return-with-merry-wives\/","title":{"rendered":"#Shakespeare in the Park makes hilarious return with \u2018Merry Wives\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Shakespeare in the Park makes hilarious return with \u2018Merry Wives\u2019<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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Nobody wants to hear about the pandemic at the theater, right? They\u2019ve come to escape and forget about the news<\/a> for a few hours. Or, I thought so anyway, until an inspired moment during Shakespeare in the Park\u2019s al fresco \u201cMerry Wives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a hard year,\u201d Johnny Falstaff, played by Jacob Ming-Trent, says in a hilarious speech to the audience. He complains about the tedium of being cooped up in his apartment for months on end watching Netflix. He\u2019s bored and antsy.<\/p>\n

So, Falstaff reasons, \u201cCan you blame me for wanting to get with Madam Page and Madam Ford?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n 1 hour, 50 minutes, no intermission. Delacorte Theater, 81 Central Park West; 212-967-7555, PublicTheater.org\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Nope! It\u2019s a brilliant line in writer Jocelyn Bioh\u2019s clever adaptation of \u201cMerry Wives,\u201d which opened Monday night at the Delacorte Theater. The quip adds new motivation to a very tricky plot. <\/p>\n

You see, Shakespeare\u2019s comedy is about an overweight drunk trying to seduce two married women for kicks. Such behavior would normally be morally abhorrent, but these days the indiscretions are understandable. <\/p>\n

Ming-Trent, who could probably make \u201cKing Lear\u201d into a laugh riot, leads the audience in a chant: \u201cWe feel you, Falstaff!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And, damn it, we do.<\/p>\n

The entire play, directed by Saheem Ali, walks that shrewd line between total irreverence and respect for the Elizabethan source material. While much of it is still from Shakespeare\u2019s quill, a Brit who died in the 17th century clearly did not, for example, watch Netflix or set his show in modern Harlem. He did not give his characters a rainbow of black backgrounds \u2014 Nigerian, Jamaican, Ghanaian \u2014 as Bioh has. The Bard wishes he\u2019d had designer Dede Ayite\u2019s fabulous, sexy costumes.<\/p>\n

\"Pascale
Pascale Armand (clockwise from left), Julian Rozzell Jr., David Ryan Smith, Phillip James Brannon and Susan Kelechi Watson star in \u201cMerry Wives.\u201d<\/figcaption>
Joan Marcus<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lest you think \u201cMerry Wives\u201d is a nonstop sex romp, get your mind out of the gutter. There are more innocent romances and scheming afoot too. <\/p>\n

While the parents of young Anne Page (Abena) are looking to marry her off to a daft sweetheart named Slender, her heart goes out to Fenton, a woman, whom her father refuses to let her be with. (Shakespeare didn\u2019t come up with this bit either).<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Falstaff sends identical love letters to Anne\u2019s mom (Pascale Armand) and Madam Ford (Susan Kelechi Watson) in an attempt to lure them both \u2014 separately \u2014 into bed. They catch on, and turn the tables on the clown.<\/p>\n

At the start of the show, the jokes are way overplayed. Double-entendres and asides, while clearly delivered, are interpreted with the aggression of someone taking a swing at Conor McGregor. Once the cast relaxes, however, the comedy rarely misfires. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kelechi Watson and Armond are especially delicious as the plotting wives, who cackle in Madam Ford\u2019s laundromat as they outwit the inflamed Falstaff. David Ryan Smith also makes a meal of Doctor Caius, a flamboyant French speaker who is constantly screaming and picking fights.<\/p>\n

But \u201cMerry Wives\u201d belongs to the excellent Ming-Trent, who turns Falstaff into a character from \u201cSeinfeld.\u201d The Public Theater delayed opening night for two weeks while the actor recovered from an injury. He was worth waiting for.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Shakespeare in the Park makes hilarious return with \u2018Merry Wives\u2019” Nobody wants to hear about the pandemic at the theater, right? They\u2019ve come to escape and forget about the news for a few hours. Or, I thought so anyway, until an inspired moment during Shakespeare in the Park\u2019s al fresco \u201cMerry Wives.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s been a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":320019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/merrywives-3.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[113761,70731],"class_list":["post-320018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-8-9-21","tag-theater-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}