Opera
The Merry Wives of Windsor is not a critical success. And yet it's widely produced.
And not just as Shakespearean comedy.
It's been the source for at least four operas. The most famous is Verdi's Falstaff (1893), but German and British composers have taken a crack at it as well--Nicolai in 1849 and Williams in 1924, respectively. Interestingly, the first operatic version was written in 1799 with a libretto by Defranchesi and music by Antonio Salieri. Yep, the guy who nearly two hundred years later would be turned into a villain who tormented Mozart in the play Amadeus by Peter Shaffer.
What this all means, I'm not sure. Save for the fact that while the ivory tower critics may hate the play, there's something in there that bring theater companies (and audiences) back to it, time after time....
This is easy to explain: The play is fun to watch.
When I started taking Shakespeare seriously, I dismissed this play, along with The Comedy of Errors and the Henry VI plays because they weren't "deep." As time went by, I discovered the obvious truth that Shakespeare can be entertaining as well as deep.
I haven't seen any performance of Merry Wives, but when I listen to it, I find myself laughing at the prospect of a big, fat, absurd man trying to fit into a basket full of smelly cloths. I've seen performances of The Comedy and enjoyed them all. The Henry VI plays are full of great scenes, and they've got more scheming than the best of today's melodramas.
The critiques need to get a life and have a little fun.
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