Merry Wives Of Windsor In The Park (and iPhone 3.0)

Last night, a friend and I saw The Merry Wives Of Windsor, as presented by the Heart Of America Shakespeare Festival.

Before the play started, this guy recited a monologue about the rules for audience behavior, including “If there be cameras, pray keep them hidden, for photography is strictly forbidden.”

I recorded part of it, just to play with the Voice Memos feature that showed up on my iPhone after the 3.0 update. It is offered here with help from the Anarchy Media Player.

Download Prologue On Audience Behavior

Later, I was harassed by a volunteer because I kept taking photos during the performance. But I wasn’t using a flash, my sound was off, and now the show gets the benefit of exposure here. So pbbt.

Here’s a shot facing backward. Most of the seating – on the ground – was free, and you can see that the $20 plastic seats were not very popular. But we were glad we got them, as we were in the second row, and the ground was wet. Between the seats and the stage was an area where you could sit on the ground for $20 per person. The arrangement reminded me of the luxury seat setup in the new Yankee stadium, where people who used to think they had front row seats are now finding that a whole new section has been added between their seats and the field.

The acting was pretty good. Whenever Falstaff got a laugh, I thought of what was going to happen to the poor guy in Henry IV. Poor Sir John.

I kept thinking about possible ways to adapt the play into a modernized film, a la Cruel Intentions. The problem is that the “A story,” about Falstaff’s efforts to seduce the rich wives, takes up most of the play, but it too light to really get an audience invested. The only story that really matters is the “B story,” about a pair of lovers trying to circumvent two different arranged marriages for the lass, but it’s kept so far in the background, clearly only (mostly?) there to keep the tension going…