OSF bring King John into WWI

Today Miriam Laube came to talk with our class, “Wake Up with Shakespeare”. She plays Hermione in The Winter’s Tale, and Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. She is a very beautiful woman who seems to take her craft very seriously. She is a very intellectual actor. I found her very agreeable, and while we talked very little about her own process, I can tell that she thinks deeply about her roles and seems to be intently focused on movement. She worked with a movement coach to develop how the pregnant Hermione would carry her body. I think her performance last night in The Winter’s Tale was real and truthful.

At 2:00 PM we went to the OSF performance of King John. It was my first time in the New Theatre and I found it a sterile, but intimate space. The production was set in World War I, and while the sets are very simple, they are also very powerful. Everything is painted grey to resemble stone. Photographs and enhanced images of WWI are projected on the floor and walls to create scenery and dreamlike sequences. King John has a bald head, which physically heightens his weakness of power. I find the politics of this play extremely interesting and I wonder why so many companies shy away from producing King John – probably just another financial dispute over ticket sales.

We went to the green show at 7:15 PM, which is always enjoyable. Although the musicians cancelled this evening, so the music was a recording.

At 8:30 PM we saw The Merry Wives of Windsor. After the lecture we went to at 12:00 PM, I was very excited to see this production.

Merry Wives is a special type of language play, because it best reflects the use of vernacular contemporary to Shakespeare. In it we hear phrases like “set quick I’ the earth” (to be buried alive) and words like “fardels” (a burden that you carry). We also see linguistic extremes (school master vs. foul language) and rude word usage. A prostitute is referred to as a “laced mutton,” and oaths are thrown about like “big gar” (often mistaken for “By God”) which is similar to “Oh, Buggar!” But the language is a little dense for modern audiences, as we see when Mistress Quickly takes the boy for a Latin Lesson. Scholars consider it the “pivot of the play” but it is often cut because modern audiences don’t understand it.

Merry Wives is a Citizen Comedy – a satire of common characters, laborers, tradesmen and merchants in an urban setting about money and sex. It examines class vs. social order, fear of foreigners, and the cohesion of communities against outsiders.

There are strong myths associated with this play – some of which are supported in history/documented and some unfounded. It is often thought Merry Wives was written to bring back Falstaff, supposedly Queen Elizabeth’s favorite character, who death is mentioned in Henry V. Inept historians often link a version of the play to a celebration performed for St. George’s day, April 23rd 1597 – but this is false because it would have revived a character that was still in the works and was not dead yet. Although this play is of interest on a number of levels, it is a commoners comedy, and devoid of the typical substance seen in most of Shakespeare’s works.

I am somewhat disappointed in the artistic choices the OSF made in this production. The costumes are over-the-top and cartoon-like, distracting from much of the play’s content (what little content there is). I everything silly (not in a good way) and I do not believe the humiliation of Falstaff was presented to its full potential. Overall I was not satisfied with the dramatic visual presentation or the artistic view of the production as a whole.