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Shakespeare: Merry Wives of Windsor Act 1

August 3, 2010 by Lori Mitchell

Act 1 Scene 1- The Merry Wives of Windsor is full of characters with really stupid names. I’m thinking their names must describe them just a bit. It starts with Shallow, yes, that is his name, whining to Sir Hugh Evans that he has been “abused” by Falstaff. Shallow’s cousin Slender, again, yes, that is his name, says that yes this Falstaff jerk has been mean to his poor cousin. Evans agrees to take on Falstaff for Shallow.

Then Evans starts talking about this girl named Anne Page. Anne is in line to inherit a buying drugs online without prescription LOT of money and wants to know if Slender can be a gold digger. I guess he figures if he can hook Slender up with the rich chick, he’ll get a piece of the fortune.

They all take off to George Page’s house. Georgie boy is Anne’s dad. As luck would have it, the jerk Falstaff is already there, so Shallow starts whing to George that big, mean Falstaff has been picking on him. Suprisingly, George says that Falstaff actually admitted to being a bully.

Falstaff walks up with his posse Bardolph, Nym and Pistol. Yeah, I told you there were stupid names in this play! So Shallow says, “You big bully, you beat my men, killed my deer and broke into my lodge!” Clearly these are serious sins back in the day. Falstaff says, “yeah, so what if I did?” So Shallow says, “I’m going to run and tell the Council on you.” And Slender says, “Go ahead, they’ll just laugh at you for being such a crybaby.” Then cousin Slender pipes in with, “Well you and your homies carried me into the bar and forced me to drink and get drunk and then picked my pockets.”

So Evans decides that he, George and the Host of the Garter Inn should hear the case. So Fallstaff asks Pistol if they did these things to Slender, and Pistol totally denies it. And Bardolph says Slender is a sloppy drunk and has no freaking clue what really happened. Slender gets all butt hurt and says that from now on he’s only going to party with nice drunks and not bully drunks. Personally, I think they all need a visit to Betty Ford!

Anne and her mother and Mrs. Ford (no, not Betty Ford) come in and George invites everybody to stay for dinner. Everybody leaves the room except for Shallow, Evans and Slender. They start asking Slender if he thinks he could see him with Anne. Slender says he’ll do whatever is expected of him, but he’s not real thrilled about it.

Anne comes back in and tells them that dinner is ready. Shallow and Evans go to eat and Anne tries to coax Slender into coming to dinner, but Slender says he’s not hungry…I’m thinking he doesn’t like girls, or he’s still pouting about the whole drunk thing. George comes back in and says, “Boy git your butt in here and eat!” So, he says ok, but Anne should go ahead.

Scene 2- is super short. Basically Evans gives Simple, Slender’s servant, a letter to deliver to Mistress Quickly. The letter just says that Slender has the hots for Anne and wants to know if Anne is interested. Clearly this is an exaggeration because Slender totally couldn’t care less.

Scene 3- Falstaff is talking to the Host, and tells him that he is spending way too much money and needs to get rid of some of the deadbeat friends, so the Host agrees to help him out and says he’ll give Bardolph a job as bartender, except they use the word tapster, like serving beer on tap. Bardolph is all excited because apparently his goal in life is to be a bartender. Falstaff is thrilled to be rid of the dead weight. Then Falstaff tells his other buds that he’s basically broke but he has a plan. He plans to sleep with Ford’s wife and get her to support him because she controls the purse strings in that relationship, so he wrote her a love letter. He also is going to play the same game with Mrs. Page, since she also holds the purse strings in her marriage. He tells Pistol and Nym to deliver the letters for him and tells them that when he cons the women out of their money, he’ll make it worth their while. Pistol and Nym actually have some morals and tell him to go take a hike, so Falstaff tells them he won’t play with them anymore and he gives the letters to Robin to deliver.

Nym is mad at Falstaff for this whole thing so he says he’s going to go to Georgie boy and tell him about Falstaff’s intentions and Pistol says he’ll go tell Ford.

Scene 4- This scene starts at Dr. Caius’ house. Mistress Quickly got the letter from Evans and she starts giving Simple the third degree about who Slender is because he’s kind of beige and blends in and she can’t for the life of her remember who he is. So then she says, ok she’ll try to convince Anne that Slender is a good catch.

Dr. Caius’ servant John Rugby runs and tells Ms Quickly that Caius is on his way cialis tablets 5mg home, so she hides Simple in the closet because apparently Caius is a real grump and will be totally ticked if he finds Simple in his house.

Caius comes in and he is French and doesn’t speak English too well. He calls for Rugby and then goes to hang up his coat or something and finds Simple. He totally throws a tantrum and threatens to kill Simple, so Quickly tries to calm him down and starts telling him that Simple has a reason to be there. So she tells him about the letter and then she whispers to Simple and reminds him that she will talk him up to Anne, even though she knows that Caius is in love with Anne too.

Caius decides to challenge Evans, even though Evans is only the go between. Then he yells at Quickly and says, “You promised me that I could have Anne.” And Quickly, who clearly talks out of both sides of her mouth says, “Oh but of course! Anne really loves you!”

Caius leaves and takes Rugby with him and Quickly tells the audience that Caius doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Haides of getting Anne. Quickly says she knows Anne better Anne even knows herself and knows that she can influence the girl like nobody else can.

Enter Fenton, another guy all hot bothered over Anne, or at least her money. Quickly assures him that Anne loves him. Fenton bribes her to talk him up to Anne. After Fenton leaves Quickly lets everybody know that Anne doesn’t love him either.

Clearly this girl is either super hot or she is about to inherit a gynormous amount of money.