Introduction

Falstaff is a character which shines through the often overlooked history plays. At the outset of this anthology, the subject being anthologized was Henry IV at large, but precious little material treats all of Henry IV, or any of the Henriad for that matter. The answer to the question 'Why, then, does Falstaff persist?' can be answered in one word: comedy. That answer seems insufficient, however. In some of Falstaff's adaptations the comedy flounders when taken out of the context of Henry IV. Even when implicitly within the context of the play, some pieces have been argued to lose the "large and indulgent and deluded and intoxicated and imposing" characteristics of the fat knight (Rothstein C30). Not just laughter, then; in serious works, in comedies, in anything, Falstaff's presence is most effective when used as an artistic foil.

As much as the phrase 'Falstaff needs Hal' may sound like a truism, in a narrative sense this is also true. Falstaff needs the serious and goal-oriented to set off his revelry. In one case, when Henry IV was reworked for an audience "in the time of beheading Charles I", the author of the work "specifically chose the passages with the rudest jokes" in an attempt to ignore "the political aspect of the original play" and declaw any more sensitive topics the work may have covered (Škrobánková 51). This omission left the play with only the criminality and revelry and peasantry, which, as one might imagine, was hectic. The work privileges Falstaff in keeping only these parts, but even with all of the politics expunged, Hal is at his side. The "duo of Falstaff and Prince Hal ―'steals the show'" only as a duo here, because without the other one is only a prince slumming it and the other is a markless huckster (Škrobánková 51). Falstaff must form the counterpoint to Hal's authority and seriousness.

Even without Hal, Falstaff generally has a foil. In Falstaff's Wedding and Falstaff Reviewing Recruits, Justice Shallow stands in for the prince. Easily so, as Shallow represents everything that Falstaff is not even more than the prince. Shallow is exacting and officious and sober. This change is the first point at which reinterpretation and difference in adaptation of Falstaff begins to blossom. After all of the laughter levelled at Falstaff in his original works, changing comedic tastes vindicated him. Once the eighteenth century came about, the new popular comedies focused on "humanitarian and benevolent" ideals and the characters were full of "innocent good humor, good nature, and cheerfulness," which found their way into Falstaff (Taye 102). Falstaff is downright magnanimous when he allows the two men who had plans to kill him attend his wedding feast, and the original Shakesperean Fasltaff would have been as likely to skip the city and abandon his bride (once he got her money, at least). The comedy of Falstaff is still through his work as a foil, but now he is a purely jolly foil to the curmudgeon in authority. The comedy is no longer as much at his expense as with his wordplay against those mocking him. Of course, as usual, fat and old and cowardice jokes abound. The difference is in the ending. In both versions of Falstaff's Wedding, Falstaff gets a happy ending instead of an unceremonious death offstage. In one of the endings, Fallstaff even gets the holiest of holies in Shakespearean comedies: he gets to invite everyone to his happy wedding.

A great deal of time passed, and then modernity got ahold of the trunk of humors. With the exception of Welles's entry in the adaptations of Falstaff, modernity seemingly also regained a grasp on laughing at Falstaff and not with him. His ridiculous juxtaposition of class is often heightened in modernity, whether in his own time as a war profiteer who drinks away all his money or as a homeless person who rules like a tyrant. In both cases Falstaff is a punching bag as he once was. Instead of a funny oaf with heartwarming foibles, he is again something grotesque in his largesse, made to set in relief something greater than himself.

That phrase, 'made to', is what holds the crux of Falstaff's flexibility and longevity. Since Falstaff is a character which exists as a foil, he can be made to do so much more than a character which more closely serves the plot. He can be distemperate and cowardly to set off Hal's inner strength, he can be funny and magnanimous to set of the parsimonious and gruff Shallow, and even outside of Henry IV, he can be a schlub that is controlled by strong women in The Merry Wives of Windsor. He sets other characters in relief, so he has a built-in feature which gives him more likelihood to be adapted into other works or his own original works.

With all of the changes and substitutions and rethinking that occurs in the process, some have compared the adaptation process to oral histories in that the works "may become embellished as they move from generation to generation" (Otnes and Maclaran 138). These embellishments are what drive the historical differences that mark the legacy of Falstaff as a character. There may be eras where audiences will not care so much for tragedies, there may be eras where political intrigue is an unsafe topic to explore, there may even be eras in which theatre is not a viable method of entertainment according to a society, but through setting off whichever character stands in for the establishment, there is unlikely to be a time when a fat oaf can't get a few laughs through boasts and drinking. If the act of adaptation is the act of embellishment, all the better. In the end, what could be more appropriate to Shakespeare's original conception of Falstaff than embellishing something sordid and less-than-great until you've created something great?