Falstaff's laundry basket
Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Producing Theater
Forum Name: Props, Scenery, Costumes and Makeup
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URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4018
Printed Date: 5/03/24 at 4:08am
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Topic: Falstaff's laundry basket
Posted By: Madwoman
Subject: Falstaff's laundry basket
Date Posted: 5/10/09 at 3:19pm
For Merry Wives of Windsor on a proscenium-arch stage:
Has anyone a good suggestion for the laundry basket Falstaff is carried off in? Our Falstaff will be wearing his own fat, and our actors are not weight-lifters. I'm thinking about a basket with an escape....but then we have to figure out where he can escape TO....
Anyway, advice on or experience with methods and materials gratefully received!
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Replies:
Posted By: Madwoman
Date Posted: 9/05/09 at 8:22pm
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FYI everyone: We built the "basket" out of lauan (except one side) and covered it all with muslin painted to look like basketweave. On the open side we hung a matching piece of muslin like a curtain; it attached to the inside floor of the basket with Velcro. This side of the basket was set against one of the doors of the set, with the door open. Shakespeare is kind enough to have written considerable hubbub around Falstaff's entry into the basket, with wives and servants and Falstaff's page all circling around the basket encouraging him and arranging laundry. Falstaff climbed into the basket and Mistress Ford brought a bundle of laundry from offstage to "add" to the basket on top of Falstaff. Meanwhile Falstaff slid out of the escape side of the basket, slid an expanding modern laundry hamper into the basket in his place, and crept away into the wings. The new laundry landed on top of the hamper (so the basket looked as if someone was in it) and the servants strained and struggled to lift the "heavy" basket and stagger off with it. Several people sitting near me in the audience commented to one another, "Glad I don't have to lift that thing!" So I guess the illusion worked. This information might be helpful to other directors of Merry Wives. I've read of some other ingenious solutions, but this one respects the descriptive dialogue in the text, as the other solutions (the basket sprouting legs, for instance) do not.
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