“Falstaff and the Endless Machine” opens on Thursday, Aug. 8, at Pier One Theatre. The production is directed by Brian Duffy and has a cast of 12. It is based on the character Falstaff, who appeared in three of William Shakespeare’s plays, “Henry IV” Part I and Part II and “The Merry Wives of Windsor.”
Duffy has been participating with Pier One Theatre since 1995 and also has a history of acting in Chicago. He first saw the production at the Valdez Theatre Conference, a weeklong event held every June.
It was shown there in 2021 as a featured reading and received a standing ovation.
“I was moved to tears and submitted the script to Jennifer Norton and Pier One to direct the show,” Duffy said.
With Pier One’s 50th anniversary last summer they couldn’t quite squeeze it in, so they rolled it over to the 2024 summer lineup. Duffy also spoke to the author, Jared Michael Delaney, based in Philadelphia, who was excited to see it come to the Homer stage. Duffy said the play is a relatively new composition and hasn’t been performed on many national stages, according to a conversation he had with the author.
The entire play takes place in one setting, the Boar Head Tavern in England, just outside of London, in the 1400s. The lead role, Jack Falstaff, is played by Liam James.
“He’s a boastful, lying, cheating, stealing, kind of unsavory character in an Elizabethan context of those traits. He is a natural response to a morally corrupt worldview of the time,” Duffy said.
Falstaff is a knight in the king’s service and boasts of having accomplished great things in battle when in fact he was out drinking. But he has a charm to storytelling that helps to lighten up the darkness around him, Duffy said.
In this play, the audience will see a younger version of Falstaff than in the Shakespeare plays. “He has his reasons for wanting to join the king’s service and become a knight, because of an incident in his childhood when a knight saved him and his mother from a certain peril,” Duffy said.
Other characters in the play included “Quick” played by Katherine Brennan, “Vintner” played by Cathy Stingley, “Locke” played by Jacques Longpre and “Doll” played by Katia Holmes.
“There’s a lot of bawdiness, there is a lot of drinking, and there is a lot of talk about stories that were or were not true. People debate Locke’s verity of his stories,” Duffy said.
Doll’s character is a prostitute whom Jack fancies. He wants her to leave her position and marry him when he gets in his knight position, but it is frowned upon “to take up with a woman who gets paid for her services,” Duffy said.
James describes Jack as “very headstrong, very stubborn.”
“He picks the first, most obvious decision that he thinks of, the most prominent answer, and follows it to achieve his ends without very much thought. He’s a very cut-and-dry hero stereotype character. He wants to do the right thing. He has a certain set of reasons for wanting to do the right thing, but he doesn’t really understand how he impacts society with his decisions.”
Holmes describes Doll as someone who has “gone through a lot of abuse and trauma.”
“But she’s still fairly soft, tender and sensitive, which is interesting. She’s really strong and she knows what she wants. She knows what’s right.”
Duffy said a key quote from the play is “cynics aren’t born, they’re made,” suggesting that Jack needs to learn to come to terms with reality and trust in other people.
The performance is also co-hosted by the Mud Bay Bards, the Shakespeare component of Pier One, under the direction of Sarah Brewer.
“Falstaff and the Endless Machine” opens Thursday, Aug. 8, and will run for two weekends with all shows starting at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available at the Pier One office at 332 E Pioneer Ave. or by calling the office at 907-226-2287. They are also available online at www.pieronetheatre.org. Note that this show contains mature language and situations.
