At the Met, poor Falstaff is upstaged by a horse

After attending the dress rehearsal in London I wrote the following to Mr Carsen to give him the opportunity to make changes. None were made before the Covent Garden first night – I would be interested to know if any of the points were addressed at the Met.

Dear Mr Carsen,

…..

Overall – and I do not intend this as condescending – I was enthralled by all aspects of the entire production, but I was disappointed by number of points mostly in what I will call the “dining room” scene. Despite the extraordinarily detailed authenticity of the sets (which also goes for the spectacular fifties kitchen set – bravo, bravo, archibravo!) and the costumes, I was surprised by the very unauthentic behaviour of many of the participants. Here are the examples I can remember (the Mistress Quickly ones are from the “gentleman’s club” set) :-

1. The waiter would never have shown to a customer a bottle of red wine which had already been opened – true in good restaurants today as it ever was. Nor would the waiters wear pre-tied clip-on bowties with wing collars!!! They might have worn such ties with normal collars, but it is a faux pas for anyone – whether a waiter or not – to wear such a tie with a wing collar where their laziness as well as lack of awareness would be so obvious! In any event, it is easy to spot a pre-tied bowtie whatever the collar – the knot is always too tight and the appearance is always too symmetrical!

2. The “new necklace” couple were preposterous. The man drained his glass just as the waiter picked up the bottle of Dom Perignon and started to top up his companion’s glass. First, a gentleman (or lady for that matters) never drains a wine glass completely – it is just vulgar. Secondly, neither would have picked up their glass to leave more room for the topping up. Even worse, was the presentation of the new necklace. In the society you are depicting – whether upper or middle class – the opening of gifts in public was just not done. Again, it was considered vulgar to display expensive gifts. The actual replacement of the necklace by the new gift was an equal breach of the etiquette of its day. At the very least, a “gentleman” would have risen and attached the necklace himself, which would have meant we would not have had the ridiculous sight of watching her fit the (presumably unfamiliar) clasp in front of her, then swinging the necklace round 180 degrees. Oh, the inelegance!

3. The “ladies who lunched” might well have split the bill between themselves, but that would never have been done in public with the actual handing over of notes across the restaurant table. The placing of slices of melon with the skin in contact with cut flesh is a silly culinary faux pas in any era!

4. The business with Pistol feigning politeness by picking up a dropped napkin, but then stealing the lady’s handbag – good for laughs – also does not work as a lady simply does not ever put her handbag on the floor (I assume that is where it was – it all happened so quickly!).

5. Mistress Quickly would have a page of her own if I had the time. What a pity you removed a lot of the tired pomposity, buffoonery and vulgarity usually associated with Sir John (“He’s not just some pompous, blown up fool” – from your comments on the Covent Garden website) and threw it at Mistress Quickly’s more than ample bosom, not to mention derrière. Apart from her generally vile and completely cartoon-like public behaviour, she would never (a) have adjusted her make-up in public nor (b) walked out smoking: a lady, however recently arrivée in her upward mobility, would never walk about smoking a cigarette, the only exceptions being at a reception where by its nature all the guests would have been standing or at home. As for her ham-fisted buttering of a chunk of her bread roll before biting a piece off!!! Well, perhaps you really were in her case (maybe even in the case of the “necklace” couple, although that really would have been subtle!) trying to show someone who actually did not know how to behave! The etiquette – now as then in polite society – is to break off a piece of bread the size of a mouthful, butter that from a piece of butter taken from your own side plate (not directly from butter dish to bread) and put it in your mouth!

I cannot believe that these are all intended examples of deliberate theatrical “irony”, i.e. that you and your team knew the right thing but deliberately put in the wrong thing. It is a pity your team did not have among them – or did not seek to consult – someone with a detailed knowledge of the United Kingdom’s public etiquette of the fifties, not all of which has disappeared. Such a pity, given the obvious love, affection and insight shown to the rest of the production’s details.

Finally, some random points.

(a) I was surprised to see the fishing rod in the last scene but, having checked up, it is possible in Windsor Great Park with a permit, but I was partly rightly to be surprised as we are currently in the close season where fishing in the park is not permitted!

(b) Two fashion points: no real lady would have put a big fat gold brooch on her mink coat (although a pair of jewellery fur clips to join the ends of a fur stole was acceptable) and Ford – who seemed in your production to be obviously a fully cultivated and cultured person – would never have walked around with a silk scarf showing the maker’s label! If – a big if! – there had been such a label sewn on when the scarf was purchased, it would have been removed before the scarf was worn. In those days, clothes labels were never shown