Theater Reviews

Oct 6, 2002 - Nevada Rep's "Merry Wives" is a Season Opener of Dull, Unmerry Results

By Jack Neal

Shakespeare's comedy, "The Merry Wives of Windsor," is given the old college try by the Nevada Repertory Company, but it's a try that rarely brings the joys of "lecherdom" and "getting even" to an audience longing for both.

The company's "Merry Wives" opened Friday night (10/4/2002) at the Redfield Proscenium Theatre before a medium-sized crowd. At nearly an hour and a half the first act was more a tour de force for the audience than a triumph for the cast. In spite of its Nevada Repertory moniker under the auspices of the University of Nevada Reno Theatre Department, the production is more a catch-as-catch-can student affair, a kind of Wolf Pack follies, than a refined molding of drama majors and other gifted theater talents into something akin to a soon-to-be professionalism.

That's a kind way of saying the show doesn't work, or at least it didn't opening night. Such is the awkwardness of productions way, way, way off Broadway that don't get the elbow room of shakedown performances before being reviewed. Even giving latitude for a production that will probably get better as its run runs out, there's little hope Nevada Rep's "Merry Wives" will ever become the romp it should be.

There are some excellent performances just chomping at the bit to get on with it. Susan Lingelbach (Mistress Ford) and Annie V. Scanlon (Mistress Page), as the two wives who thrill at giving dirty-old-man Falstaff his comeuppance, are delightful and bring a warmth and radiance to the action every moment they're on stage. Stacey Spain has a field day moving Mistress Quickly through the plot's odd twists with a dispatch worthy of the Quickly name. Kevin R. Molina is a properly enraged Ford and carries himself with the kind of stage assurance that makes him an actor who could have a theatrical future. Kevin M. Sak (Pistol) is a bit over the top, but it's nice to see such things as Sak's does done at all. He's an actor who always works at making his characters special.

There are others in the play's large cast who carry their roles with aplomb. Unfortunately, one of them is not Sir John Falstaff. Neither director Sue Klemp, nor actor Gary L. Metzker know what to do with Shakespeare's lecherous old buffoon. What a shame! Falstaff should give today's politically-correct audiences a chance to let it all hang out. Metzker's is too dark and stiff a Falstaff to bring buoyancy and fun to either the play or his character's absurd persona.

Director Klemp's pacing bogs down in a production whose set designs (by Michael Fernbach) are so heavily conceived it takes a moving company adorned in stage-crew black (at least they could look Elizabethan) to shove huge chunks of it into place and there's lots of moving that takes place. While the chunks are being shoved, the play's forward motion - no music, no style, no action - goes, well, splat. Although sagging tights went out when new fabrics came in (but obviously not here), the costume designs attributed to Virginia Vogel and Jennifer Garra are - above the legs - attractive. Save being distracted by reflections off refracting portions of set, Larry Walters lighting designs are first-rate.

"The Merry Wives of Windsor" continues its run October 9, 10, 11, 12 at 7:30 p.m. and October 13 (2002) at 1:30 p.m. at the Redfield Proscenium Theatre on the University of Nevada Reno campus, 900 North Virginia Street, Reno. Next up for the Nevada Repertory Company: Simon Gray's "Otherwise Engaged," November 15 through 24 (2002). For information about Nevada Repertory Company productions call 775-784-6847.