Part farce, part sitcom, this most English of Shakespeare’s comedies plays like a madcap episode of I Love Lucy.  A drunken lecher with more ego than sense, two clever merchant’s wives with a penchant for revenge, and a love-sick ingénue plagued by insufferable suitors, Merry Wives is a of sundae of pure hilarity topped with a sprinkle of wit.

“Heaven give you many, many merry days! Good husband, let us every one go home, And laugh this sport o’er by a country fire.”