Fast Up Beat Very Funny Wives at Chicago Shakes

Director Phillip Breen has turbo charged Shakespeare’s hot mess comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor and assembled a fabulous cast of masterful physical comedians who bring the audience laughs in every scene. This is a Wives to remember!  Jason Simon’s Sir John Falstaff steals the show, but Issy Van Randwyck’s no holds barred Alice Ford comes in a very close second. Chicago fan favorite Ora Jones as Mistress Page provides a wonderful and humorous mom to Olivia Pryor’s Anne Page whose hand is sought by three men.  Nate Burger’s over the top French Dr. Caius is also notable and pee in your pants funny. 

Max Jones’s set is beautiful and ingenious with a use of a hilarious hole down in the middle of the stage.  Jones is also credited with the fabulous costumes, and the final scene of fairies in the woods is unforgettable. The doe costumes alone were worth the price of admission. There are bits of visual comedy strewn like candies through the show. 

The thin plotline of the show has Falstaff ineptly wooing the wives of other men, an insanely jealous husband trying to catch his wife cheating on him, and a family jockeying to marry the daughter off  to what each thinks is a best placed suitor.  It may or may not be a commentary on class, and in Breen’s hands it cloaks the difficult position of women in ribald comedy.  There is no true unraveling here: the show ends with everyone ok. Perhaps that’s what we need right now. 

The Merry Wives of Windsor was not meant to be a deep commentary on society or a satire poking fun at social institutions.  It was meant to be an entertainment and this rendering takes that impulse and amplifies it into a rip roaring night at the theater.  Forget your troubles and head to Navy Pier to laugh your socks off. 

The Merry Wives of Windsor is playing Tuesday April 28, and Wednesdays through Sundays until May 3rd, 2026 at Chicago Shakespeare’s Courtyard Theatre on the dazzling Navy Pier. for tickets and information go to https://www.chicagoshakes.com/productions/2526-the-merry-wives-of-windsor/

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