SEMO PLAY OFFERS MERRY MIX

Yoicks!

Characters in modern Lake-of-the-Ozarks mufti spouting Shakespeare as if it were their native tongue! (Well, in a way, of course, it is. How do you think Falstaff became so popular?)

But what goes here? Just "The Merry Wives of Windsor," Southeast Missouri State University's Touring Theatre, Summer 1991, production of the "classic" comedy that opens at 8 tonight at the Forrest H. Rose Theatre, Grauel Language Arts Building, where it will frolic again Friday night before taking off on a three-state tour.

Nattily cut and adapted by Robert W. Dillon Jr. as artistic director and with Ellen Dillon as managing director, "Wives" plays on the age-old battle between the sexes in which, of course, women consistently outwit men and men, all too frequently, aid and abet by making fools of themselves.

Touring shows, which are presented indoors and outdoors under all kinds of "non-Rose" technical conditions (i.e. a band shell with the front row of the audience 50 feet from the actors), provide excellent training for nascent actors as well as grand entertainment for audiences who rarely see "live" theatre."

Actually, nascent isn't really a good adjective for the members of this troupe, most of whom have been on-stage at The Rose and elsewhere previously but are not yet established as professionals, and this is one more step toward maturity.

This includes, of course, such "tech" people as Doug Pecka, set and lighting designer/technical director (and master of recycling); Lori Prewitt, production manager/ assistant director; and Matthew Garner, assistant production manager.

Falstaff (and his various male "siblings") have long been favorites of playwrights and audiences (Shakespeare used him in several plays) and was, so the scholars tell us, such a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I that the Bard wrote "The Merry Wives of Windsor" upon her demand that this pot-bellied knave be given the "star" role.

And so it is that University Theatre's vet Doug Powers of Cape Girardeau, stuffed to the gills with Lord-knows what, gets to play this juicy comedic role, which has him attempting to make love to every woman in sight (if she happens to control the money, that is, and apparently many Elizabethan women did ... what happened to that, one wonders?)

Anyhow, the greedy rotundity (who must have invented some early version of the copy machine) sets his sights on two relatively wealthy middle-aged women, sending each identical love letters.

Of course, both are married, and the husbands are to be cuckolded. There are Master and Mistress Page (John Clippard and Kara Cracraft, both of Cape Girardeau) who have a delightful young daughter, Mistress Anne (Abbie Crites of Wheaton, Wyo.) we'll deal with her later and Master and Mistress Ford (Jeff South of Poplar Bluff and Ellen Dillon of Cape Girardeau).

Falstaff reckons not on the conspiratorial and inventive friendship of the two women, who compare his "love" missives and determine to humiliate him and teach hubbies and a few other males around a few lessons in the bargain. And so the fun begins, with skilled histrionics from all.

Dan Akre of Billings, Mont., plays Sir Hugh Evans, a minister friend of the Page and Ford households who gets himself drawn into the Falstaff fracas. Jay Cross, also of Billings, doubles as Pistol and Fenton, the first of whom is one of Falstaff's cronies and the latter the pure-hearted youth who marries Mistress Anne for her very person, rather than for the money even her mother sets such a store by. (Even women can be fooled.)

Fenton's conquest of Anne knocks several noses out of joint, not the least of which is that of Robert Shallow (a Falstaff-in-the-making), played by Jamie Weiss of Bonne Terre, whose portrayal of youthful innocence does not quite match that of his "beloved."

Adding to the merry mix are Dr. Caius (done to a fare-thee-well by J. Alden Field of Sikeston), a French doctor at odds with the Pastor Hugh Evans; the doctor, although chosen as a "suitable" husband for Anne by Mistress Page, winds up in the arms of the gossipy-biddy-matchmaker Mistress Quickly (Orlinda W. Lusher of Denver, Colo.), who has proved useful to the Mistresses Page and Ford in their schemes of revenge on Falstaff.

So all's well that ends well and "The Merry Wives of Windsor" not only ends well but goes well, and will sally fourth to represent the university well on its tour.

Falstaff, however battered the survivor, is able to declare, "I am glad, though you have taken a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced."

And Mistress Page wishes her new son-in-law and us all "Heaven give you many, many merry days."

So say we all!