'The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove' gives Shakespeare a 'Beach Blanket Bingo' makeover

“The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove,” a philharmonic adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” astatine UC Irvine’s New Swan Shakespeare Festival, relocates the drama to a Southern California formation municipality successful the 1950s. The surf’s up, a chocolate-covered-banana basal is hopping and a washed-up Elvis-like stone prima named Johnny Falstaff is trailing chaos.

Those merry wives aren’t really each that merry astir the authorities of their marriages. Margaret Page (Sonya Cooke) has mislaid each patience with her grinning, gadabout husband, George (Evan Lugo), who floats done beingness arsenic though it were arsenic lighthearted an matter arsenic “Beach Blanket Bingo.” Margaret’s champion friend, Alice Ford (Sarah Hentges), has much superior problems with her jealous husband, Frank (Abel Garcia), who suspects infidelity whenever she leaves the house.

When Falstaff (Wyn Moreno), motivated by avarice and a mania for cuckolding, comes a-wooing, sending identical letters to Margaret and Alice, the wives turn merrier arsenic they acceptable a trap for their shameless suitor, whose uncontrolled appetites marque him an casual mark.

Margaret and Alice are the forerunners of Lucy and Ethel, and Shakespeare’s comedy, written expressly to entertain, gives america a consciousness of what an Elizabethan-era concern drama mightiness look like. The Falstaff of Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” is not the analyzable fig of the “Henry IV” plays. (The precocious student Harold Bloom, a Falstaff fanboy, called this mentation of the quality “pseudo-Falstaff, “ and considered “Merry Wives” to be, on with “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” Shakespeare’s “slightest” comedies.)

Sonya Cooke (Margaret Page) and Sarah Hentges (Alice Ford) successful “The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove.”

(Jesus Lopez Vargas)

Revivals of “Merry Wives” are not each that frequent. I’ve seen Verdi’s “Falstaff,” which heavy relies connected Shakespeare’s crippled for the opera, much times than I’ve seen the play. But Margaret and Alice’s quick-witted machinations supply the ground for a merry outing astatine the theater.

When the possessive and paranoid Frank Ford runs into Margaret arsenic she’s scurrying to conscionable his wife, Alice, helium pointedly remarks, “I think, if your husbands were dead, you 2 would marry.” To which she replies successful savvy screwball manner worthy of Carole Lombard: “Be definite of that — 2 different husbands.”

I person a brushed spot for “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” The refreshing show of the women teaming up against Falstaff ne'er fails to amuse. And I admit the frank and forgiving airy the play sheds connected semipermanent marriage.

But swaths of the drama are antiquated. And the connection has a dashed disconnected prime successful places, suggesting there’s immoderate information to the fable that Shakespeare wrote the play astatine the petition of Queen Elizabeth, who was said to beryllium truthful charmed by Falstaff that she wanted a sequel depicting Sir John successful love.

Falstaff isn’t precisely successful emotion successful Shakespeare’s comedy. And helium decidedly isn’t motivated by axenic romance successful this adaptation, written by New Swan founding creator and producing manager Eli Simon and Anna Fitzgerald, with euphony by Zachary Dietz. As successful each things, Falstaff is led by his belly, a gargantuan metaphor for his gluttonous nature.

Megan January (Nym), Wyn Moreno (Johnny Falstaff) and Sam Schneider (Pistol) successful “The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove.”

(Jesus Lopez Vargas)

The pastiche score, indebted to the popular charts of the 1950s, isn’t allowed to dominate. As modern musicals go, this is simply a low-key affair. The drama is inactive the happening successful this frolicsome outdoor production, which takes spot successful the charming ambiance of the festival’s portable, mini-Elizabethan venue.

The formed is principally composed of UC Irvine students, past and present, with a fewer impermanent artists successful the mix. Under Simon’s direction, the presumption is creaseless and professional, though the ensemble reflects antithetic levels of experience.

My wide enactment is peculiar to the genre: Comedy works champion erstwhile exaggeration arises the mode it does successful nature, arsenic a information of property alternatively than arsenic a calculated theatrical effect.

Certain members of the formed propulsion the wit a small excessively vociferously. How overmuch funnier Shakespeare’s motley unit tin beryllium erstwhile we’re allowed to observe the assortment of eccentricity and ludicrousness connected show for ourselves.

Falstaff’s girth is worked into the comic mayhem, but the quality should beryllium much than a show gag. Moreno tries to sphere a measurement of dignity portion wearing a jumpsuit from Elvis’ Las Vegas era. But the show gag quality of the characterization is overworked.

Garcia’s Ford seems not conscionable jealous but borderline apoplectic. (Garcia is much nuanced erstwhile Ford is operating successful disguise to suss retired Falstaff’s existent intentions.) As Doctor Cayo, 1 of the risible suitors for Anne Page (Marilyn Alonzo), Heriberto Cruz Jr. delivers a flailing, full-body show that practically holds the assemblage hostage for laughs.

Evan Lugo (George Page), apical left, Sonya Cooke (Margaret Page), apical right, Zane Caputo (Abraham Slender), from bottommost left, Zach Trent (Skateboard Fenton) and Heriberto Cruz Jr. (Doctor Cayo) successful “The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove.”

(Elijah Waller)

Robert Shallow (Greg Ungar) does what helium tin to beforehand Abraham Slender (Zane Caputo, appropriately zoned out), his socially inept nephew, arsenic a prospective hubby for Anne. But neither man is what anyone would telephone efficacious. In truth, some performers look much astatine location arsenic members of the Banana Splits Band, the quirky onstage combo that ushers successful the show’s retro beat.

In a nicely balanced performance, Alejandra Villanueva’s Mistress Quickly, the play’s go-between and overseer of mischief, embodies the escaped and casual tone of Simon’s production. Lugo’s George has a elemental affability that’s infectious. And Alonzo’s Anne and Zach Trent’s Skateboard Fenton, the young lovers swerving astir parental obstacles, are a delightful throwback to those gaga California kids from the property of “Gidget.”

Cooke’s Margaret and Hentges’ Alice remain, arsenic they should, defiantly successful charge. The adaptation delves much into their marital melancholy, but I felt I understood them amended successful Shakespeare’s original, which recognizes the powerfulness of proposition and interpretive restraint.

Yet “The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove” succeeds successful extending a lukewarm communal clasp to its audience, which is the eventual purpose of this mischievous and kind-hearted comedy.