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alstaff is coming to Pamlico Community College Sunday afternoon. The comic opera, being performed for the first time, is based on the character out of Shakespeare (not, we should note, the beer of the same name). This original play is the centerpiece of the Falstaff Festival which will feature several other musical performances throughout the afternoon.

The ambitious production is being staged by a group of Pamlico County residents. It was written by Debra Khouri and scored by Paul Knudson, both of Oriental.

Per Erichsen in the title role of “Falstaff.” The production on Sunday at Pamlico Community College is based on Shakespeare’s “Merry Wives of Windsor” which Per says is Shakespeare’s “sit-com”.

Shakespeare as Sit-Com

Debra Khouri, who is directing the play, got the project started last spring when she adapted the script from Shakespeare. Khouri notes that the character Falstaff appeared — for comic relief — in several of William Shakespeare’s heavier plays.

Back then, Queen Elizabeth so loved the stout character, Khouri says, that she asked Shakespeare to write a play with Falstaff in the lead. That play, Merry Wives of Windsor, was as Khouri describes it, “light fare,” Four centuries ago, she laughs, Shakespeare wrote what today would be considered “a total sit-com.”

Debra Khouri, who adapted the Shakespeare play and who directs the production, and composer Paul Knudson.

Khouri, who moved to Oriental after a career in business, was an English major and over the years, acted in various productions. Sitting down to write this adaptation, she rediscovered an appreciation for Shakespeare’s comedic turns and one-liners in the four-century old original.

“His sense of comic timing in the lines is uncanny,” Khouri said before a rehearsal the other night. Khouri’s job was to condense the various story lines and modernize some of the more Elizabethan language. The result is not so much a translation, as it is streamlining of English, while keeping true to the wit and spirit of the original.

Georgette Rush, one of the merry wives in the comic opera, “Falstaff.” The production features many men in tights and some women whose velvet costumes and trains have been described as looking like Spanish galleons.

Setting Falstaff to Music

Once Khouri condensed the script last spring, she presented it to local composer Paul Knudson. Knudson freely admits that going in to this production, Shakespeare wasn’t “part of my vocabulary.” Yet he is not a stranger to the portly, comic character. He’s quick to cite Giusseppe Verdi’s “Falstaff” as being the best operatic treatment of the subject.

Paul Knudson and the first pages of his score to “Falstaff”.

Gesturing to his own score, propped on the piano the other night, Knudson describes his as “a little ripple in a small pond.” But the enthusiasm for the project is evident and Knudson says he’s been loving the production unfolding at the community college’s Delamar Center stage.

The scene at a rehearsal earlier this week. Tights and velvet will be more in evidence on Sunday.

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Players On The Stage

In addition to Knudson and Khouri, the production brings together a cast of 23 people, including Per Erichsen as Falstaff and Georgette Rush as one of the merry wives he pursues. Amogng the cast are Ernest Dunn, Kevin Davis, Ben Gaskill who plays Pistol, Spencer Bliss as Bardolph.

One of the youngest cast members, Caty Spruill who plays one of several fairies, and director Debra Khouri. It’s Spruill’s first time acting, and Khouri’s first time directing.

The cast ranges in age from 6 to 83, Khouri says. One of the younger actors is sixth grader Caty Spruill, who plays one of four singing fairies. It’s her first play. It’s also been her introduction to writer from Stratford. “I had no idea who Shakespeare was,” she says, until two month ago when work began on the play.

In another casting of note, local minister, Keith Sexton of Oriental’s Methodist church plays a bartender and a sounding board for other characters. Khouri says that he’s in some scenes with an actor playing a minister. “It’s funny how it all shakes out,” she says. (Sexton, meanwhile, notes that his bartender is the only male character not wearing tights.)

It has been noted that most of the men, in keeping with the era, do wear tights. Here, Debra Khouri with Kevin Davis, by day, a music teacher in Pamlico County schools.

Tickets At Elizabethan Era Prices Still Available

The Falstaff Festival will include not only the 90 minute opera but also entertainment by The Musicians’ Society of Pamlico County, The Inner Banks Brass Quintet, The Pamlico High School Show Choir which will be performing madrigals. The Society for Creative Anachronism will be on hand as well, lending a pre-Elizabethan flair to the proceedings.

The opening page of the score for Falstaff, the comic opera.

The Falstaff Festival gets underway at 1:30p on Sunday, February 28 at the Delamar Center at Pamlico Community College. Tickets are $6. You can buy tickets in advance at Croakertown, The Silos, Buckhorn Books or the Bank of the Arts in New Bern.

Oriental’s Rotary Club will be selling dinners.

Posted Friday February 26, 2010 by Melinda Penkava