Tom McCamus, Chick Reid (7/95 Merry Wives of Windsor)
Excerpt from Eye Weekly 7/13/95: Tom McCamus | Pictures on Historic Images and Facebook
ON STAGE REVIEW THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
by ROBERT ARMSTRONG eye WEEKLY July 13 1995
Featuring William Hutt, Dixie Seatle, Tom McCamus and Stephen Ouimette. Written by William Shakespeare Directed by Richard Monette and Antoni Cimolino. Festival Theatre, Stratford To Oct. 29. $22.50-$53.75, 363-4471.
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The best laughs came during the magnificent pantomimes that punctuated the performance, for example, when Master Ford searches his house for the hidden Falstaff.
© Eye Weekly
Excerpt from Imprint Now 10/95: Tom McCamus, Chick Reid
Merry, Merry, anything but contrary
by Jennifer Epps
The merry wives themselves, Dixie Seatle and Chick Reid, are rather formless - they plot Falstaff’s punishments with relish and have a certain spirit and so on, but it’s the smaller moments before or in-between the bigger ones that fall by the wayside.
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As Frank Ford, the husband who does get jealous, who gets bitterly jealous, Tom McCamus holds the audience in the chill shadow created by his lonely, stiff-backed suspicions, then segues into the frenzied slap-stick Monette and Cimolino demand of him without losing face as an actor.
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And yet at other times Monette pulls dynamics to a strange halt - during Falstaff’s self-pitying speech to Ford, Hutt is encouraged to stretch it out endlessly, not just milking the audience for laughs but squeezing them till they’re raw, while McCamus, listening, has to stand absolutely frozen with his back to much of the theatre.
© Imprint Now
Excerpts from Stage Door 10/95: Tom McCamus, Chick Reid (Nicole Carter in "Blood Ties")
Merry Wives of Windsor: A Stage Door review by Jim Lingerfelt
Stratford's premier piece this season (1995) is Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor, a popular piece last here in 1990, and now back again with William Hutt in the featured role of Falstaff.
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In this play, two wives, Mistresses Page and Ford, receive identical love letters from the philandering knight and decide to play a trick on him, setting him up to play on his amorous intentions, then dispensing with him in cruel and inventive ways. They have a word for that today. I can't print it. Messrs Page and Ford are alerted to Falstaff's intentions, but are unaware of their wives' motives. Ford is quick to a jealous rage, and determines to trap his wayward wife. He fails, and embarrasses himself in the process. Mr. Page, on the other hand, is less concerned for his wife's fidelity than for her choice of husband for their daughter. On this they disagree, and their daughter disagrees with both.
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Dixie Seatle and Tom McCamus are the Fords, Chick Reid and Wayne Best play the Pages, with Kari Matchett as their daughter, Anne.
© Stage Door