The Merry Wives of Windsor @ Seattle Shakespeare Company (Seattle Center)

A Queer Adaptation, wherein neighbors look a little different, but are just the same at heart

Our old friend Falstaff has a ploy to make some easy money: woo Mistress Page and Mistress Ford and thus gain access to their husbands’ wealth. It shouldn’t be too challenging; he can be quite a charming and insightful man when it benefits him. He sends the mistresses notes with declarations of love, but in a small town like Windsor, everyone knows everyone else’s business and Mistresses Page and Ford soon realize their notes are exact copies. Rather than take that insult lying down, they make dates with Falstaff, scheming to be discovered in flagrante by their husbands and so to achieve their saucy revenge on the knight. Throw in a cartload of other zany characters and watch shenanigans ensue.

Theatre maker Eddie DeHais adapts this rowdy, raucous, unruly romp featuring some of Shakespeare’s most clever and comic characters. They are creating a Merry Wives of Windsor that will feel farcically familiar while examining the stickiness of conflicting personalities and viewpoints in a small town. Co-directed by Eddie DeHais and Corey McDaniel.

Location: Center Theatre (Seattle Center Armory, lower level)

Previews 11/1-2, opens 11/3.

Tickets ($35-$62, depending on day) here.

$10 rush tickets (if tickets remain) available for all performances; see Groundling tickets info here.