The Taming of the Shrew
by William Shakespeare
Directed & Adapted by Shea McMillan
Produced by Plague Mask Players
Reviewed by Jenny Wood
Every performing arts oriented friend group has that one person who just will not shut up about “But whhhyyyyy do we have to see another [Taming of the Shrew]?”
Me, I am that friend. Director Shea McMillan has answers.
Directed and Adapted by McMillan, Plague Mask Players’ production of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew is presented in Living Black and White™ courtesy of Pegasus Theatre, as the second production in The Elevator Project’s 2024 Season.
In the Director’s Note, McMillan asserts “The 1950’s sitcom seemed an especially apt lens through which to view this fought and antiquated Shakespeare text… The playful, peppy family programming of the midcentury is genuinely delightful and we hope to pay homage to a wonderful era of television. At the same time… [r]omantic relationships are presented as competitive, with each partner striving to gain the upperhand and win the battle. While that does not sound healthy, it certainly sounds like Taming of the Shrew!”
She is correct. The Royal Shakespeare Company has described Shrew as a “fierce, energetic comedy of gender and materialism.”
To distill the plot down as simply as possible, the younger sister Bianca (Sarah Perkins) cannot marry until her older sister Katharina (Jaclyn Thomas) marries. A young man, Lucentio (Erik Campos), wishing to marry Bianca pays an enterprising man, Petruchio (Cody Magouirk) to woo and marry Katharina. Petruchio accepts the challenge, ultimately capturing Katharina’s hand and - depending on who you ask - by the end of the play Petruchio either tames "the shrew" or "the shrew" tames him. The musical Kiss Me Kate and the movie 10 Things I Hate About You are two well known adaptations of the story.
The grayscale aesthetic was selected for this production not only as an homage to an era, but also “amplify the humor and confront the story’s sexism, bringing out a dissonant twist reminiscent of The Twilight Zone.”
Plague Mask Players’ technical design team delivers an effective version of Pegasus Theatre’s trademarked technique, but Jared Cobb’s Sound Design deserves extra credit for tying everything together with expertly timed laugh tracks and meaningful transition music. Two of Gelacio Eric Gibson’s costuming moments similarly stood out - Petruchio’s wedding suit and the Widow’s finale look were impressive studies of gray on gray contrast.
The production’s greatest success is the tight editing and run time. Shakespeare die-hards will notice certain popular lines missing from the dialogue - I would argue that most of the edits were necessary to focus attention on the questions McMillan has posed. The pace is set up to evenly distribute key conversation points over the course of the evening. By splitting the action into two acts each almost exactly 70 minutes long with one 15 minute intermission, we never have to think too hard for too long, but we are always thinking.
This is a notable achievement because Shakespeare in its raw form can be exhausting and inaccessible, like the first time you mistake an unsweetened 98% cacao bar for milk chocolate. McMillan’s adaptation falls somewhere around a 65% Belgian dark – smooth and bittersweet.
That smoothness is effectuated by an impressive supporting cast. Top of show and throughout, Ansley Arthur’s Tranio clearly communicates the who and why and where in a story that has every man but two pretending to be someone they are not. Shana Gregory Williams (Baptista Minola) and Alida Liberman (Grumia) are consistently grounded and conversational in tone, without sacrificing comedy or style. Campos, Salvador Elias (Hortensio), and Jake Lawwrence Geary (Gremio) are charming as Bianca’s trio of suitors, fully embracing the Dick Van Dyke and Ricky Ricardo of it all.
And there’s the rub really, three men scheming to buy and sell a woman’s hand in marriage come off as… charming.
As to the titular question of whether "the shrew" has been tamed, Karen Newman of Folger Shakespeare Library (folger.edu) states it more elegantly than I:
“No lines in the play have been more variously interpreted than this final speech in which Kate advocates women’s submission to their husbands’ wills. Some critics have accepted Kate’s speech simply as testimony that she has been tamed; others argue that it must be understood ironically as pretense, a strategy for living peaceably in patriarchal culture. Although either interpretation can be supported by the text and by a director’s choices in the theater, what is perhaps most striking about Kate’s final speech is that at the very moment the ideology of women’s silence and submission is most forcefully articulated, we find a woman… speaking forcefully and in public the longest speech in the play, at the most dramatic moment in the action. In short, Kate’s speaking as she does contradicts the very sentiments she affirms.”
The choices observed onstage the evening I attended could support either interpretation of Kate’s final speech, depending on the audience member you ask.
And that’s the why - even a production with a clearly stated framework, substantially executed, presents an ambiguity that carries the conversation from the theater to the post-show cocktails to the group text the following day. Go see it with friends, talk about it after. If you see me out, let me know where you land.
Taming of the Shrew continues through March 17, plaguemaskplayers.org for tickets and info.
Cheers,
Jenny
Audience Rating: PG13 - themes of misogyny and domestic abuse against women and female-presenting bodies, depictions of verbal abuse, slapstick violence, and simulated alcohol use.
Run Time: 2 hours 35 minutes, including one 15 minute intermission.
Accessible Seating: Available
Hearing Devices: Available
Sensory Friendly Performance: Not Available
ASL Performance: Not Available
Production Sound Level: Appropriate.
Noises or Visuals to Prepare For: None of Note.
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