The Taming of the Shrew: Indeed a Revel

Running Time: 2 hrs, 30 min

Looking upon the variety of plays in the Shakespearean canon, as we cruise liberally on towards the next millennium, two stand out as problematic for our time: The Merchant of Venice, for its rife anti-Semitism; and The Taming of the Shrew, which trumpets the subservience of a woman to her man. Producing either play requires a delicate juggling of old and modern sensibilities -- anti-Semitism is bad; women should have equal standing to men -- which usually winds up with some sort of fiddling with the text.

The State Theater Company's production of Shrew engages in a little text fiddling to circumnavigate any wholehearted moral outrage with the play. Indeed, even Shakespeare may have been loath to simply stage the story of Petruchio's bodacious wooing and breaking of the shrewish Katharina: for that story is really just a play within the play, a diversion for the amusement of a local lord and his men.

When alehouse gadfly Christopher Sly (Everett Skaggs) is discovered in a drunken stupor by a local lord (Douglas Taylor), the lord has his men carry Sly off, dress him up as a nobleman, and bring in the players to offer an entertainment for Sly's benefit. Sly awakes in his finery, believes he is indeed a lord, and spends the rest of the play observing the traveling players' presentation of The Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare has put a little distance between the real world and that of Petruchio, Kate, and the others, offering an evening of clowning, bawdiness, and dubious morality, all for Sly's benefit. The State's fiddle is to offer a scene at the end of the play (along with plenty of hilarious Sly interjections -- including his admonition to the players at a play's-end brawl that no one should have to go to prison) which replaces the drunkard in the gutter, as if all had never been. Any moral rectitude dissipates like a drunkard's dream.

But the players' little romp is played seriously enough, once it gets going, and it is a fine comic pageant, albeit with a harsh bite. Director Guy Roberts has wrought a world for his version of Shrew that captures the frivolity and antics of a Pieter Brueghel painting. His edit, or fiddling, wins for style, wit, and sheer theatricality; conceptually speaking, Roberts makes the less palatable aspects of the story resemble a sport, another turn among the many comic bits.

His cast, an ensemble of some of Austin's best talents, includes Skaggs, reprising his doddering drunkard with precision, and Taylor, a jovial bystander once things get going. Alan Waldock is amiable (and so comfortable with Shakespearean text) as the players' leader and daughter-bedecked father, Baptista; Ev Lunning Jr., as Petruchio's bawdy jester, Grumio, dons a Scottish accent for reasons unknown, but for pure energy, few can match Lunning's cavorting and wordplay. Joey Hood is handsome and assured as Lucentio, suitor to Katharina's lovely younger sister, Bianca, played by a coquettish Lara Toner. Dueling local suitors Gremio and Hortensio are portrayed by local comic stars Thomas C. Parker and Barry Miller.

Steve Shearer shines as Petruchio -- confident, witty, and dashing. He takes command, dealing with his intended bride like an animal trainer one moment, a stand-up comic the next; when he appears to gain the upper hand, he softens into a loving, gentle man. Andrea Osborne, in the difficult role of Katharina, plays the shrewish older sister like a tigress, snarling, scratching, screeching, barely human. Her moment of decision to play along with Petruchio is actually frightening -- Osborne's Kate won't really submit, she'll just play the game to ensure her survival. She is a madwoman at play's end; her final speech is pure make-believe, and the now-doting Petruchio better sleep with one eye open.

Design-wise, this production is as effective as the acting: James Barker and Don Toner have made a lovely little Elizabethan courtyard that mocks the old Globe Theatre with an inner below, balcony, and thrust-like stage. Stephen Petrilli's lighting is simple and effective, and Buffy Manners adds a variety of colorful period costumes to this carnival. The whole production is indeed a revel -- the comic mania, slapstick, innumerable pratfalls, and dubious tactics of Kate leaving the audience as entertained as Sly in the colorful pageantry.