Word: falstaff
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...Falstaff...
...meet again some of Falstaff's wonderful cronies from the Henry plays: the red-nosed Bardolph (Edward Asner); the swaggering Pistol (Richard Easton); Nym (Severn Darden), a "fellow frights English out of his wits"; and the aged Justice Shallow (Will Geer...
...farcical byplay is implicit in the lines; but just as much remains to be invented, and this production is inventive indeed. Dr. Caius' business of hunting for his green box turns into a frantic cat-and-mouse chase through double closet doors--an old gimmick, but still effective. When Falstaff says, "There's my purse," he reluctantly drops a small, silent pouch--obviously empty. The wives make a big point of exchanging the love letters to be sure each has the right one, when both letters are identical. Ford's "The clock gives me my cue" is accompanied by strokes...
Irwin Bazelon has composed the most appropriate and witty musical score in the Festival's history. The opening dissonant notes, with their absurd instrumentation, immediately set the mood for farce. Here and there a xylophone is comically used. And Falstaff is often accompanied by a tuba solo--a coupling that is just as apt here as is the pairing of the tuba with Sancho Panza in Strauss' Don Quixote. (This production even includes the actual dumping of Falstaff into the Thames; and what Falstaff later calls his "kind of alacrity in sinking" is conveyed by a descending tuba scale...
...minor. Hiram Sherman, being innately comical, cannot as Ford quite convey "the finest mad devil of jealousy that ever governed frenzy"; perhaps it would have been wiser for him to exchange roles with Patrick Hines (Page). Ford is also too half-hearted in his cudgeling of Falstaff disguised as a witch; Falstaff ought to be beaten "grievously." Falstaff, in recounting his indignities, misses the point by interjecting, "a man of my kidney"; the sense demands, "a man of my kidney." Finally, the closing explanations of the triple elopement seem sudden and confusing because the portions containing the precise conditions...