[In the following review of Rachel Kavanaugh's 2002 Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, Green praises its postwar British setting and “versatile and energetic” cast.]

In the pair of RSC touring productions seen at Stratford in the winter of 2002-2003, a versatile and energetic company was rewardingly cross-cast in plays that differed in theatrical style as well as dramatic genre. Rachel Kavanaugh set The Merry Wives of Windsor in postwar Britain, and David Farr's Coriolanus began in a Samurai world into which modern elements—typewriters, tennis rackets, coffee cups, and guns—were gradually introduced. The design team of Peter McKintosh and Ti Green was common to both plays, McKintosh being credited with set and costumes for The Merry Wives, and Green with those for Coriolanus. The “season stage” (as the program refers to it) devised jointly by these designers made use of the Swan's platform and galleries but was adaptable to the venues—many of them nontheatrical—visited on the tour.

Postwar in the British consciousness still means post-1945 and specifically the period of austerity during which a Labor government laid the foundations of the National Health Service, nationalized the transport and power industries, and instituted free education from nursery to university. It is also a period remembered for hardship and rationing, and for the emergence of a lucrative black market. American military personnel were still in evidence: the old joke was that there was nothing wrong with the Yanks except that they were “oversexed, overpaid, and over here.” Kavanaugh's production tapped into this vein of popular history (or, for some of us, memory) by making Falstaff's crew recently demobbed servicemen, while the knight himself had obviously managed what might be called a “good war” in a safe staff posting. George Page (Simon Coates) and Frank Ford (Tom Mannion) were prosperous businessmen, apparently untroubled by the state of the economy, and their wives, like many middle-class women at the time, could expect to have at least one servant. The program divided the cast into “Visitors from London” and “Visitors from Gloucestershire,” and identified Hugh Evans as “a Welsh parson” and Caius as “a French doctor.” It did not mention the interesting notion that Master Fenton—listed as “a gentleman”—was portrayed as an American serviceman. Inquiring too curiously about such things may not be appropriate when dealing with a genial farce, but it did seem odd that no line in the play referred to Fenton's nationality or (given the temper of those times) to the fact that he was played by a black actor, Chuk Iwuji. Many British communities were shocked by the “color bar” maintained in the American forces, but it is unlikely that in postwar Windsor everyone would have been so tactful as not to mention either of the distinguishing traits of Anne Page's suitor. The passages concerning the Germans at Windsor were cut, perhaps because this would seem incongruous in the context—or perhaps because, like the scene in which the little boy is quizzed on his Latin, the director found it more puzzling than useful.

Comparisons with Bill Alexander's 1985 RSC production, set in the 1950s, were unavoidable, but that staging had inhabited the era of growing prosperity (“you've never had it so good”) as distinct from the pinch-penny drabness of the earlier decade (“make do and mend”), and the reminiscence of I Love Lucy (popular in the UK as well as in America) in the performances of Lindsey Duncan and Janet Dale supported the wives' independence of mind. Kavanaugh's device enabled us to see a traditional society invaded by an unscrupulous moneymaker with claims to social superiority but insufficient funds, and it also guyed the confident rhetoric of the period: the music that played during the opening scene of early morning bustle in Windsor was in that strain of imperial serenity that William Walton could produce by the ream. The wives (Lucy Tregear and Claire Carrie as Meg and Alice) were appropriately energetic, and Mannion's portrayal of Ford splendidly frenetic. To become Master Brook, this Scottish actor reverted to his native accent, as well as donning what is best described as a “comedy overcoat” and mustache. Mannion has the skill to make Ford's fantasies seem like poetic flights of fancy rather than simple ravings, and the physical authority to suggest that he may well be a pillar of the community brought to a pretty pass rather than an eccentric wound up like clockwork.

As Falstaff, Richard Cordery—a large, tall, but by no means fat actor—was lightly padded, but his delight in language as well as the delicacy of his movements suggested a refinement above the heads of the Windsor burgesses. This was a Falstaff surprised and delighted that the women should find him attractive, rather than a self-assured Lothario. To go wooing, he adopted the tailored flannel trousers and sports jacket of a man about town, and as the fat woman of Brentford, he was bundled up in a huge black dress and a grandmotherly hat. He raced across the stage to take refuge in the inn—a pursuit that evoked the Ealing comedies. (When he next appeared as himself, Falstaff realized only just in time that he had forgotten to remove one of his earrings.)

Mistress Quickly (Alison Fiske) had a mincing walk and a distinctively faux-genteel accent, instantly identifiable as that of a comic charlady. (It recalled two comediennes of the period: Irene Handl and Beryl Reid.) As she “did” for Dr. Caius, she vacuumed and polished to dance-band tunes on the radio; always well turned out, she seemed to harbor ambitions for a good life of her own choosing. Greg Hicks as Caius gave a display of taut-muscled jerkiness, a cross between Monsieur Hulot and Peter Sellers in manic mode. His accent seemed to be that of a highspeed Clouseau, with “By gar” sounding more like “Bugger” with each repetition. Michael Gardiner made Parson Evans a dignified churchman, and Adam Kay's Slender was a charmingly hopeless nitwit, unable to understand how he sickened Ann Page with his boast of prowess at bearbaitings. There was no easy jollity in the final moments: Falstaff was palpably wounded by the attack on his dignity, and Mistress Ford was not going to forgive her husband so easily.