Merry Wives, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Sidney Harman Hall, Washington, DC
The cast of Merry Wives at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo credit: Teresa Castracane. Some Shakespeare scholars believe that it was during a period of the plague that Shakespeare wrote two of his best-known and most admired plays, King Lear and Macbeth . Just as in that troubled period, during the COVID-19 pandemic (the “plague” of our times), playwrights, actors, musicians, and artists were challenged to think outside “the box” in order to keep their creative juices flowing. New York’s Public Theatre commissioned award-winning playwright Jocelyn Bioh, who received a Best Play Tony Award nomination for Jaja’s African Hair Braiding (produced last year at Arena Stage), to work on a new production of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor . The resulting play, now titled Merry Wives , was first produced in New York in 2021. The production program credits Bioh as “Adaptor,” though I am certain that titleTdoes not reflect the magnitude of what she has accomplished, which i...