When Suzanne Wingrove auditioned for the role of Falstaff, the Shakespearean character best known for his comical part in “Henry IV” Part I and II and as the swindling, overweight rascal from “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” she remembers she “hoped more than anything” that she would get the part.

In fact, it’s been 10 years since Wingrove has acted in a play. As a 55-year-old, plus-sized woman, she says, “It can be very difficult to find a role that works.”

But when she heard that Flock Theatre was looking for an actor to play Falstaff as part of its summer Shakespeare program (a season that would feature three plays with the character), she knew that her physical characteristics could suddenly become an asset.

From Flock’s perspective, the theater not only needed someone who could physically fit the part but also someone who could portray the oversized and philosophically ribald Falstaff ("a character who is the epitome of the male ego," according to director Derron Wood) in a lighthearted manner that was both humorous and endearing without being too masculine or off-putting.

So when Wingrove stood to read her lines at the audition, Wood knew she would be a perfect fit for “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” a play written around the turn of the 17th century at the request of Queen Elizabeth I, while actor Geoff Latham would play Falstaff in the other more dramatic "Henry" productions. Well-versed in Shakespeare and classically trained in acting, Wingrove delivered her lines with style and finesse. But it was her playful female interpretation of the male ego that Wood found irresistible — a perfect twist, he says, to add to what was already a feminist-inspired Shakespeare play.

This isn’t Wingrove’s first time playing a male Shakespeare character. She portrayed “Twelfth Night’s” Sir Toby Belch with Flock (her debut with the theater) in 2000. From there, she knew she wanted to also play Falstaff but had to wait 18 years before such an opportunity would arrive. In the meantime, besides performing in plays here and there, she completed a bachelor’s degree at Connecticut College in both English and theater and later worked as a bookkeeper for her local church.

Earlier in her career, Wingrove, who is a Seattle native, studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Art in Pasadena, California, throughout the early ’80s, after what she described as a childhood of reading and adoring Shakespeare. She moved to this area two decades ago with her husband, Erik Wingrove-Haugland, a philosophy professor at the United States Coast Guard Academy (the two moved to New London last year after residing in Gales Ferry for the last 21 years).

“I haven’t acted in a decade. But I have to tell you that doing this is making me look at the audition schedule and making me think I need to do more acting,” Wingrove says. “It’s been deliriously fun.”

According to historical accounts, Queen Elizabeth adored the character of Falstaff, who originally appeared in Parts I and II of “Henry IV” as the rotund knight who tempts Prince Hal to take part in thievery and drinking antics. But when Falstaff was killed off in "Henry V," Elizabeth requested that Shakespeare resurrect the character in a comedy. The result? “The Merry Wives of Windsor.”

Considering that the play was written specifically for the most powerful woman in the world at the time, Wood says it can be theorized that Shakespeare may have purposely incorporated the play’s many feminist elements as a nod to the queen. Made up of several twisting plotlines that, at the end, happily converge into overall hilarity, the play’s plot ultimately hinges on two women who successfully fool, over and over, the unsuspecting and self-seeking Falstaff.

“Not only did Shakespeare write a play about two strong female characters,” Wood says, “but he had them trick and outsmart the man not once, but several times.” Such writing, he argues, was a step away from the male-centric plotlines that make up much of the Shakespeare canon but is also an element of the production that may appeal to modern sensibilities, especially in the face of today’s #MeToo movement.

The piece opens with Falstaff arriving to Windsor short on money. He decides that, to help with this predicament, he will simultaneously seduce two wealthy wives, Lady Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, and steal their husbands’ fortunes. After discovering that they both received two identical love letters from the knight, the two wives discover that Falstaff, who believes he is oh-so charming, is, in fact, trying to dupe both. But instead of calling Falstaff out on his nonsense, the wives devise comical schemes to shame and humble the knight. At the heart of the story, though, Falstaff is meant to remain charming to audience members.

“That’s the thing with Falstaff, is that he really is in that betwixt and between. I think that’s why everyone gravitates towards him in one way or another. Here is a character that is not afraid to laugh at himself. When the joke is on him, it’s just like, ‘Oh, you got me,’” says Wood. “If you don’t for some reason find that you love Falstaff, then why are we doing this?”

“This Falstaff is Suzanne’s Falstaff,” he continues. “In the rehearsal process, we’ll talk about this. What is it that makes a character so politically incorrect but lovable?”

From Wingrove’s perspective, that element comes down to the feminization that she brings to the character, a gender-bending approach, she says, that was also used as a comedic tool by Shakespeare through much of his work (such as in "Twelfth Night," when character Viola disguises herself as Cesario).

“But that was the tricky part, to make him lovable,” Wingrove says.

There is one sequence, she says, where she is stuck in a room with the wives. One of the jealous husbands is storming his way toward the room and Falstaff needs to escape. It’s at this point that Wingrove says she pleadingly looks at the girls for their help.

“I don’t just look at them and demand to get me out of here, but I look at them like, ‘Girls, help me out here, I need your help,’” she says, explaining the softer sides she incorporated into Falstaff. “I appeal to their sympathy rather than trying to frighten them, which I don’t think would work right. I am completely at their mercy in that moment, which gives them the upper hand. The way the power will shift back and forth between the characters is part of the fun.”

From Wood’s view, Wingrove, just by being a woman, offers a commentary on the male condition through the female perspective, which, on its own, is simply hilarious.

“It’s some of the physicality that Suzanne brings to (her character),” Wood says. “There is one element where she is doing this thing that reminds me of the gopher from ‘Caddyshack,’ where she is like, ‘I’m so proud of myself, I’m doing my little gopher dance,’ that I find hysterical because I’ve definitely seen men do that.”

To that end, Wingrove later adds, “Falstaff is already a parody of a man. So being able to step into that as a woman is naturally an extra layer of a parody.”

m.biekert@theday.com

If you go

What: Flock Theatre production of Shakespeare's “The Merry Wives of Windsor”

Where: Connecticut College Arboretum, 270 Mohegan Ave., New London

When: 7 p.m. Aug. 18-19 and Aug. 23-26

Price: $20 adults, $15 students, seniors, active military

Tickets sold at the entrance to the performance area