Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – A tale of two SHREWS

• By drediman
• June 14, 2016
• No Comments

I recently had a chance to catch two productions of that most flawed and tricky of Shakespeare comedies The Taming of the Shrew – one in an all-female staging at the Public’s Free Shakespeare in the Park, and the other in an all-male version at Washington, DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company. Together, these two productions make fascinating companion pieces for reasons that go far beyond simply their respective casting decisions.

Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female production of The Taming of the Shrew (SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED) for the Public’s Free Shakespeare in the Park, which opened last night at the Delacorte Theater, proves to be raucous, if two-dimensional entertainment. Ms. Lloyd’s approach to the play’s wonky gender politics is to frame the show as a hillbilly beauty pageant. Given the play’s troublesome viewpoints, this “gimmick” mostly works – up to a point. Unlike Ms. Lloyd’s previous all-female Shakespeare productions for the Donmar Warehouse – Julius Caesar and Henry IV, both of which subsequently transferred to St. Ann’s Warehouse – which powerfully crystalized the centrality of the power struggle inherent in those plays, her Taming shirks from the play itself despite making conceptual sense. Indeed, at one point, the delicious Judy Gold’s Gremio breaks the fourth wall and admits to the audience that a certain passage is boring and goes on to replace it with a crowd-pleasing rant. The production is fast (running at under two hours without an intermission), loud, and flashy, as if to compensate for the play’s deficiencies, therefore downplaying, unfortunately, any insights into love and relationships that Shakespeare has to offer. All this being said, the acting is excellent, particularly the majestic Janet McTeer’s Petruchio and the comically inspired Donna Lynne Champlin’s Hortensio. Unfortunately, the talented Cush Jumbo is asked to play Katherina at an off-putting level of excitability.

The immersive and well-acted production currently playing at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC couldn’t be more different. Not one to shy away from ambitious theatrical visions, director Ed Sylvanus Iskandar’s (do you remember his audacious The Mysteries at the Flea a few seasons back?) voluptuous and stylish all-male The Taming of the Shrew (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) reads between the Bard’s lines in ways that Ms. Lloyd simply refuses to. Mr. Iskandar’s Taming is, above all, about love, in its infinite varieties and ultimate incomprehensibility. Featuring nearly 20 songs mostly by Duncan Sheik and an extended intermission (during which audiences are invited onstage to observe the characters’ drunken shenanigans during Katherina and Petruchio’s wedding feast), the production is overstuffed and arguably overlong with a running time of over three hours. No matter, I was intrigued throughout. This Taming suggests that what goes on behind closed doors defines a relationship; each relationship operates in its own logic. Indeed, despite their instantaneous combat, there is an immediate and clear attraction – physical, emotional, intellectual – between Maulik Pancholy’s beautifully calibrated Katherina and Peter Gadiot’s handsome and sweeter-than-usual Petruchio. Katherina’s trial-by-fire tribulations in the second act therefore becomes an oddly moving complicit act of love than an awkward plot point to explain away. For everyone else in the play (which includes Broadway’s own Andre De Shields as Gremio/Vincentio/Curtis and Telly Leung as Lucentio), “love” is unearned and superficial, which the devastating closing tableau makes clear.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
Off-Broadway, Play
Free Shakespeare in the Park (The Public Theater) at the Delacorte Theater
1 hour, 55 minutes (no intermission)
Through June 26

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
Regional, Play
Shakespeare Theatre Company at Sidney Harman Hall (Washington, DC)
3 hours, 10 minutes (no intermission)
Through June 26