By Harry Duke

The Jacobethan Theatre Workshop’s Shakespeare in the Park(ing Lot) summer series concludes with a production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. The Shakespeare comedy features one of the Bard’s greatest characters as well as the usual masquerading and comeuppances.The show has two remaining performances – Saturday, August 23, at 7:30 pm, and Sunday, August 24, at 6:00 pm. 

Blustery blowhard John Falstaff (Justin Thompson) sees a way out of his financial troubles through the simultaneous seducing of the wives of two very well-off residents of Windsor. Mistresses Page (Liz Jahren) and Ford (Rosi Frater) get wind of his plan, and undertake a series of pranks to put the portly philanderer in his place. Master Ford (Michael Fontaine) also gets wind of Falstaff’s plan and undertakes a masquerade to test his wife’s fidelity. Soon everyone is having a merry old time at Sir Falstaff’s expense.

There’s a subplot involving Anne (Skyelar Clouse), the daughter of Master (Anthony Martin) and Mistress Page, and her three suitors – a French Doctor (Jean-Colin Cameron), a rich fool (Brendan Smith), and her true gentleman love (Levi Sterling).

Connecting the two threads is Mistress Quickly (Mariangela Pagán), who’s making quite a buck passing messages and arranging trysts among the various parties.

Director Lukas Raphael has a strong cast at work here with Thompson the perfect Falstaff. Jahren and Frater earn their laughs as the scheming wives as does Pagán as the go-between, and Cameron elicits chuckles as the French Physician (with an accent just this side of Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau.) There’s a lot of good, physical work being done here by the entire cast in support of the comedy.

But it’s veteran actor/director Michael Fontaine who almost steals the show with his flustered Master Page. At first just an innocent bystander in the wives’ tomfoolery before becoming a full participant, Fontaine’s precise delivery of the dialogue (“CUCKOLD!”) was a joy to hear and gave weight to the humor, though he gets a big assist from his costume and wig (and a sunglasses gag right out of Airplane!)

The Merry Wives of Windsor has never been considered by scholars as one of the Bard of Avon’s finest works, but as long as it’s done well – as it is here – it makes for a perfectly pleasant, amusing, and free outdoor theatre outing.

But dress for a chilly evening.

The Jacobethan Theatre Workshop’s Shakespeare in the Park(ing Lot) production of ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ runs through August 24 in the field adjacent to 6th Street Playhouse, 52 West 6th Street, Santa Rosa. Saturday, 7:30pm; Sunday, 6:00 pm. Free. (Donations graciously accepted.) jacobethan.org.

Photos by Lauren Heney