The Story So Far...: Feel Free To Move...But Not Too Much!

The Merry Wives of Windsor...the musical?
Funny, isn't it? The more 'modern' we become the more traditional and, for want of a better word, Shakespearean we find ourselves being.
We really are a very lucky bunch of thesps because last night we were delighted to welcome to rehearsals (for the big finale!) our choreographer, Suzie, and the man who's writing the music especially for this production, Mr. Ben Malley.

Without giving too much away - and to clarify the 'ancient and modern' comment above - there is a section towards the end of the play that entails Herne the Hunter, faeries, hobgoblins and more mayhem. Ben has created a soundscape for the opening section and set some of Will's words to a lovely tune for Sally to sing. And as modern as it sounds, there is a wonderful feeling of the traditional music that could be heard in the Globe when Will was plying his trade.

Suzie worked with pretty much the entire cast on getting the traffic from A to B, without disrupting the flow of the words and the feel of the poetry, and on to C. There was initial choreography for the final curtain-call song and dance, which reprises the Sal Song, and also reminds us that this was the way that performances ended at the Globe (The Swan, The Rose etc etc). So it is a modern dress version of the play but with real Shakespearean values. It's already feeling like a classic!

Working on the 'let's torment Falstaff' scene

And there is definite debt of gratitude to paid to the entire cast and all the practitioners from last year's production too. As you recall, it was a Commedia dell'arte rendering of 'The Taming of the Shrew', which required some real physicality and stepping-out-of-the-comfort-zone from all involved.
And the confidence gained whilst working on that has spilled over into this year's rehearsals with a vengeance!

The levels of commitment and skill were sky-high; everyone worked together (as they should) and had a brilliant time transferring Suzie's ideas to their performances and the scene as a whole. The bloke in the front had the hardest time though. You've got no idea how tiring it is to just sit around and watch everyone else dance about a bit.

Dancing about a bit!

Wives has been described, not only by me, as anarchic (not showing respect for official or accepted rules and behaviour - thank you Oxford English!) and it is all of that, but it is also fabulously funny, a little rude (quite a lot rude, actually) and, in places quite scary and cruel. The end scenes that we were rehearsing last night, whilst having a funny element, also included some of the things an Elizabethan/Jacobean audience would have found remarkably scary and unnerving.

(Not dissimilar to the Witches in Macbeth; we may not find them particularly frightening, but back then? And the same applies to the faeries in The Dream and spirits in The Tempest. Other-worldly stuff was something you might have poo-pooed then...but you still made the sign of the eye to ward them off!)

The comedy in Wives is derived from a lecherous old soldier trying to have his way with two virtuous wives and their revenge upon him for his crass belief that they could ever find him remotely attractive. Yet. Yet the comedy ending involves something darker than that - the complete humiliation of the man using the scariest (at that time!) means possible. Add a bit of torture and pinching and you've got the perfect Elizabethan comedy! Here's a thing: within the Shakespearean canon, The Merchant of Venice is classed as comedy. Really?

Chase me!

'Where's Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid

That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,

Raise up the organs of her fantasy;

Sleep she as sound as careless infancy:

But those as sleep and think not on their sins,

Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides and shins.'

Not only does the scene scare, it is also reinforces the religious message of the time: pray, be virtuous and all will be well but if you don't repent your sins, well...just read the last two lines again. And these lines are spoken by a vicar!

Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.

Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:

Where fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept,

There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:

Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery.

Even the faeries and their queen won;t let you get away with it! Then comes the song that sums it all up.

Fie on sinful fantasy!

Fie on lust and luxury!

Lust is but a bloody fire,

Kindled with unchaste desire,

Fed in heart, whose flames aspire

As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.