The Taming of the Shrew

First, an honest confession. I don’t like Taming of the Shrew. The starvation scenes when Petruchio is taming Kate smack a little too much of domestic abuse for me to read it as pure comedy; Bianca’s suitors all merge into one in my mind; and I can’t fully know if I’ll enjoy the production until the last scene as the treatment of Kate’s final speech inevitably affects my enjoyment of the play. Seeing as it’s one of Shakespeare’s classics, I’ve always been intrigued as to whether I will ever find a production that manages to redeem the play in my eyes. So when the Arrows and Traps theatre company twitter drew my attention to the fact that they were putting on a cross-cast production of The Taming of the Shrew near to me and dared me that they could make me enjoy the play, I had to take them up on their challenge.

From the opening, I already had a fair idea that this was going to be something special. The meta-theatrical scenes involving Sly, which are so often cut from performances, were retained in a way that took full advantage of their comedic potential. I think a fair few members of the audience, myself included, were initially convinced that the drunkard wandering onto the set with ‘theatre staff’ endeavoring to fend him off was separate from the play. This firmly set the agenda for this production, which had a strong emphasis on the deception elements of the plot as well as the themes of power and powerless. Sly’s apparent holding of power, when he holds none, and Petruchia’s fight to dominate Kay are cleverly drawn together in one of the most effective endings to the play that I’ve seen.

The action was set in a 1920s inspired setting and in addition to having actors of the opposite genders play the principle parts, their pronouns and names were altered to fit their new genders. So Lucentia falls in love with mummy’s boy Bianco, while Petruchia woos her Kay. One consequence of this gender-swap is that the disobedience of the husbands at the end of the play has far more dangerous undertones. The widower, in particular, is fairly physical with Hortensia. Kay’s final speech is thus coded more in terms of respecting their wives and treating them well, as it would be so easy for them to act brutishly.

While more menacing undertones are not fully lacking from the taming scenes, the company does its best to ease these fears. Petruchia appears genuinely regretful about the course of action she is undertaking and very concerned that what she is doing is out of love of Kay. Kay’s ultimate response at the end of the play appeared to treat the taming as Petruchia asserting her own equality in the relationship. Their final dynamic is a relationship strongly based on equality, as opposed to the other couples where all parties were battling for dominance. The strong chemistry between the actors playing Petruchia and Kay helped in selling this.

Overall? Phenomenal. I never thought I’d say this, but I think I’ve found a production of the Taming of the Shrew that I can not only tolerate, but thoroughly enjoy. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.