At 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 9, I had planned to attend the “Merry Wives of Windsor,” a play originally written by Shakespeare. To my knowledge, NCC students do not have to pay to attend plays, and being a freshman I assumed I would show up and be seated immediately. Well, I was wrong; the box office told me that the show was sold out. I let the man at the window know I was from The Chronicle and that I was writing an article on the play. He told me to stick around to see if anyone did not show up, and if so I could take that seat. After about 15 minutes of waiting, everyone showed up, but I ended up being given an usher seat, which was actually not too bad.
Kara Barrios, who played the cook, was able to explain how this production came to be. She said that David Petersen, a professor at NCC, was very involved in the production. “There was a lot of editing that happened throughout rehearsals. Some days he would come in and cut scenes and monologues to fit the flow of the 1950s story line. It is intended to one day be a published script, so it is great to be a part of that creative process and be able to bring his vision of the story to life,” said Barrios.
Shakespearean language in a 1950s restaurant setting was somewhat off, but still the cast was able to effectively deliver the dialogue in a way that Bridget Adams, who played the strong, confident Margaret Page, believes it to be “almost better” in this time period than in the 1590s.
As the cook, Barrios had a small role; despite this, however, her acting was big. While Margaret Page and Alice Ford were front and center, the cook was in the background, embracing the role of a drunken, hilarious woman.
“Most of the time I found my eyes wandering back to her,” said Lauren Whelan, who was an audience member of the Wednesday performance. “She was one of my favorite characters, along with the doctor.”
When asking other cast members which role they would want to play other than their own, many answered with the role of the cook.
“I think I would be the cook, who is super funny. She is a part of the second plot of the show,” Adams says. “(Barrios) was absolutely hilarious, so I would just want to be as funny as she was.”
Whelan gave the performance a four-star rating, saying, “I would probably give the production a four. The acting was really strong, the set was absolutely beautiful, but there were some characters who did not embrace the role fully. With some minor tweaks the show could have been better.”
