Queen Elizabeth I enjoyed the theatre. The story goes that she so enjoyed the character of Falstaff as shown in Shakespeare’s Henry plays, that she gave Shakespeare 14 days to come up with a storyline showing “Falstaff in love” and Shakespeare, liking where his head was (ie, on his shoulders), dutifully came up with The Merry Wives of Windsor. This possibly explains why many Shakespeare scholars do not consider MWOW as one of his best — plus it doesn’t do much rhyming. But for modern audiences, it resonates quite extraordinarily.
Sir John Falstaff — think the “Harvey Weinstein” of his day. Successful at his job; celebrated for his exploits, ruthless, narcissistic; at the top of a power structure — he outranks everyone else in the town of Windsor that we meet. His cunning plan ... woo a couple of wives of rich husbands who will be so tickled by the fact that he, Sir John Falstaff, is paying attention to them that of course they will finance his way of life and give him the cash-flow he rather desperately needs. He chooses Mistress Page and Mistress Ford — sending them identical letters of his undying love.
Mistresses Page and Ford did what all women should do in similar circumstances — they immediately ran to their bestie to talk about it — ie, each other! Falstaff, being the arrogant sod he was, completely misread his targeted victims. These wives are no shrinking violets in need of Falstaff’s attentions. Together they formulate a plan to give him his comeuppance — and then move on to out-and-out revenge — and then have another go just to see if he’ll fall for it (spoiler alert — he does!).
This being Shakespeare, it is not the only plot happening in the play. Numerous jokes are made at the expense of other power structures — the clergy, medical and law representatives personified by Sir Hugh, Dr Caius and Justice Shallow — the bumbling and borderline incompetent local clergy. They are also entangled in the marriage plans that Master and Mistress Page have for their daughter Anne — and of course in this power structure, Anne has no say at all. Anne has her sights set on someone else entirely (who does not meet with the approval of Mum and Dad), and let’s just say that the “apple does not fall far from the tree” and scheming does not only belong to Mistress Page snr.
In addition to all of this, Shakespeare was able to add into the mix a bunch of fairies. You will just have to come and see it to see how.