SOURCE: Gates, Anita. “Where Women Are Merry and Men Hide in Closets.” The New York Times CXLIX, no. 51274 (21 January 2000): E26.

In the following review, Gates maintains that when The Merry Wives of Windsor is staged properly, it can be “adorably silly,” and that the Pearl Theater Company's production of the play as directed by James Alexander Bond accomplished this. Gates additionally comments that the production was briskly paced and energetic.

The plot of The Merry Wives of Windsor is simple. An aging, seriously overweight man gets it into his head that two attractive married women in town have eyes for him, and he decides to make their lives complete by sleeping with them. Separately. The women's husbands hear about this plan, and one of them puts on a disguise in order to find out just how interested the wives are. When the women themselves hear about it, they...