So, last night I went to the free showing of Merry Wives of Windsor last night. I can't recall if I've mentioned this or not in the last few years, but at the end of every school year one program of freshmen puts on a few free Shakespeare plays. I tried taking Dave last year on a Saturday, got over there a half-hour before starting time and found out that they were full up, so this year I came EARLY. Like, out-of-work-at-5, anyone-over-here-yet early.

Alas, nobody actually started to line up until about 6:30... oh well, not like I had much better to do. The people behind me in line were quite entertaining to listen to. One of them had apparently been mentioned in the spoof edition of the Aggie as one of the people who was not supposed to get shot at. He was mentioned in the paper as "That guy with the horns, cape, cane and beard getup", and "his unborn children" were supposed to not be shot as well. Heh. For the record, he had the cape and beard, but no cane or horns that night.

The play rocked. I haven't read it before, and it was long (again, that's Shakespeare for ya), but they always do a very amusing job with the productions every year.

A few of the actors this year threw me off, though. One of them had, almost dead on, the voice of Ben the robot designer in Short Circuit, and the other (Falstaff) looked like the dude that works at the pharmacy and has the crush on Lois on Malcolm in the Middle. And one girl in the show looked almost dead on like Jackie, down to the clothes she was wearing. Rather er, distracting.

They decided to have this town kinda substitute for the town of Windsor in some ways, so the theater was decorated with "Anne Page for Homecoming Queen" and "Fenton for Aggie MVP" posters, a sign spoofing the town population sign, and the Ford and Page mailboxes had "Bomb Iraq" and "Make Love, Not War" posters respectively. The local tavern is our Graduate, etc. It was also quite amusing to hear local towns thrown into the script, as well as comments about Far Side calendars and the like.

They threw in a few song and dance numbers in this show. The Fords did "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better", followed by a swing dance bit, a line dance bit, and some slow dancing. Heh. Later on, everyone sung "Gaston" to the tune of "Sir John." Rather scary how much the lines fit there, eh? They also cracked me up how they'd play the Pink Panther music every time Ford got into disguise. And at the end they had this awesome cloth tree they hung from the ceiling to do the fairy trickery around.

The acting rocked, especially with some folks. The girl playing Mistress Quickly was a total hoot, and Mrs. Ford's expressions when she was hiding something (disgust at Falstaff, giggling her head off when he was hiding in her house) were amusing. The two lame suitors for Anne's hand were (a) giving the impression of retardation, plus he kept macking on a picture of her and a art model doll, and (b) a totally crazy French dude. Heh.

Man, I wish I could act and be in something like this.

previous entry - next entry
archives - current entry