Merry Wives

Abstract

Reviewed by: Merry Wives Ali Madani Merry Wives Presented by The Public Theater at the Delacorte Theater, New York City, NY. 6 July–18 September 2021. Directed by Saheem Ali. Adapted by Jocelyn Bioh. Costume design by Dede Ayite. Scenic design by Beowulf Boritt. Lighting Design by Jiyoun Chang. Sound design by Kai Harada and Palmer Hefferan. Original music by Michael Thurber. Original drum compositions Farai Malianga. Fight direction by Rocío Mendez. Choreography by Darrell Grand Moultrie. Hair, wigs, and makeup design by Cookie Jordan. Production stage manager Narda E. Alcorn. Stage Manager Benjamin E. C. Pfister. Sound system design by Jessic Paz. With Abena (Anne Page), Gbenga Akin-nagbe (Mister Nduka Ford), Pascale Armand (Madam Ekua Page), MaYaa Boateng (Fenton/Simple), Phillip James Brannon (Pastor Evans), Joshua Echebiri (Slender/Pistol), Angela Grovey (Mama Quickly), Jacob Ming-Trent (Falstaff), Susan Kelechi Watson (Madam Nkechi Ford), Julian Rozzell, Jr. (Shallow), Kyle Scatliffe (Mister Kwame Page), David Ryan Smith (Doctor Caius), and others. “The Public Theater,” promotional material announced, “is theater of, by, and for all people.” On public transit to the Delacorte Theater I encountered a man walking the subway A-train selling tasers and stunguns, [End Page 152] another entering in a hospital gown, and a third wearing a track suit, reading Karl Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, and smirking (he wasn’t wearing a mask despite official mandates). Are these minor spectacles relevant or merely remarkable? After some eighteen months of drastically reduced time witnessing the New York City public, it can be difficult to distinguish. The Public Theater’s staging of Merry Wives (July–September 2021) was the first production of Shakespeare at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park since the 2019 performances of Much Ado about Nothing and Coriolanus. Like much of the theater planned for 2020, The Public’s production of Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery’s musical adaptation of As You Like It, scheduled to return to the Delacorte during the first summer of COVID-19, was cancelled in deference to public health, and their planned production of Richard II became a radio play. Merry Wives was my first experience of live in-person theater in the pandemic era. This production would also have been my first opportunity since March 2020 to participate in a crowd, were it not for the mass demonstrations against anti-Blackness and police brutality that had spurred a sequestered public to collective action. In New York City those mass demonstrations were followed promptly by mass arrests, further police brutality, and swarms of nocturnal police helicopters hovering just overhead. The effect of the City’s militarized response was to deny rest to those who most needed it, to dissuade the public from further action. It was out of this dizzying urban scene that Jocelyn Bioh’s adaptation of Merry Wives appeared. A celebration of Black joy, The Public’s performance of Shakespeare’s city comedy was keyed to the time and location of its staging. Beowulf Boritt’s fabricated block of contemporary Harlem, complete with Citi Bikes and a Black Lives Matter mural, served as backdrop to the action of the play’s West African-descended characters. Directed by Saheem Ali, Merry Wives radiated joy and “Black Aliveness,” a term I borrow from Kevin Quashie’s recent monograph of the same name. To imagine Black being in reprieve from the threat of anti-Black violence, as this performance managed with exuberance and style, participates in the worldmaking of Blackness as capacious and relational. The production insisted on the relational nature of the theater, organizing seating based on vaccination status, ability, and seniority. Those audience members at greatest risk from COVID-19 were seated in a section preserving physical distance and requiring masks. I and my viewing companion, a friend visiting from out of town whom I had not seen in two years, sat in the “full capacity” zone designated for the vaccinated. Before the performance began, ushers invited audience members in the [End Page 153] vaccinated section to remove masks. (Performances were cancelled the following week due to a production member’s positive COVID-19 test.) On this night, Bioh and Ali invited to the stage Helen...