Theatre review: The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare's Globe)

There's only really two things wrong with The Taming of the Shrew: One of them is half the plot, and the other is the other half. In Padua, the beautiful Bianca (Sophie Mercell) has many suitors, including the wealthy locals Gremio (Nigel Barrett) and Hortensio (Lizzie Hopley,) and recently-arrived Lucentio (Yasmin Taheri.) They compete for Bianca's hand in a needlessly convoluted scheme involving assuming fake identities, swapping around real identities, and a steadfast refusal to say a single funny line. The other storyline gives the play its title, as Bianca is not allowed to get married until her older sister Katherina (Thalissa Teixeira) does, and as she's considered a difficult woman, it seems she never will. So Hortensio recruits his mercenary friend Petruchio (Andrew Leung) to marry Katherina (it's not like she has any say in the matter) and once that's done he proceeds to bend her to his will through a sustained campaign of gaslighting and literal torture as defined by the UN.

Theatre review: The Taming of the Shrew(RSC / RST & tour)

With Shakespeare's plays so well-known, and the amount of people who presumably include a theatre trip to one of the plays, whichever one's playing, in a visit to Stratford-upon-Avon, the RSC must get more than its share of audience members who don't really look at the description of the show. You could even miss the fact that Justin Audibert's production of The Taming of the Shrew was going to be notably high-concept. That would explain the "ooooohhhh"s of sudden understanding, after opening scenes full of women eager to push the plot forward, when Baptista (Amanda Harris) introduces her eldest and most difficult son, Katherine (Joseph Arkley.) Audibert's idea isn't to cross-cast the play but to set it in an alternate 1590 (the likely year of the play's premiere,) in which the world has developed exactly the same, but as a matriarchy. So wealthy women like Baptista run the show, and their sons depend on marriage to secure their futures. But the yobbish Katherine is too independent to attract a husband when there's more compliant men like his brother Bianco (James Cooney) around.

Theatre review: The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare's Globe & tour)

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: The production is previewing at the Globe prior to a tour.

After a pretty safe opener in Twelfth Night, the second of Brendan O’Hea’s Globe productions vying for votes on the tour is The Taming of the Shrew. It’s a play that seems ripe for exploration in a year when #MeToo is a major theme in theatre, but it’s also one that, precisely because of the modern context, needs a lot of work and a high concept to find its place on a 21st century stage. Can an eight-strong company who are also rehearsing two other plays at the same time bring that level of nuance? No. Lucentio (Luke Brady) arrives in Padua and instantly falls in love with Bianca (Sarah Finigan,) daughter of the wealthy Baptista (Cynthia Emeagi.) Baptista knows his youngest daughter has many suitors, and has used this to deal with a problem: His eldest, Katherina (Rhianna McGreevy) is so bad-tempered she’s widely considered to be cursed. Baptista has decreed that he’ll only give his blessing for Bianca to marry when a husband has also been found for Katherina.

Theatre review: The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare's Globe)

This year is the centenary of Ireland's 1916 Easter Rising, the setting Caroline Byrne has chosen for her production of The Taming of the Shrew; it's the only reason I can see for a season with a "Wonder" theme to include a play that's short of that quality on pretty much every front. Byrne's all-Irish cast are led by Aoife Duffin as Katherine, the eldest daughter of wealthy Padua merchant Baptista Minola (Gary Lilburn,) notorious for her violent temper. Her younger sister Bianca (Genevieve Hulme-Beaman,) on the other hand, is famed for both beauty and a pleasant personality and has numerous suitors, but they'll all have to wait as Baptista has decided that a husband has to be found for the elder daughter first. The suitors need someone to take that bullet and Petruchio (Edward MacLiam) sees her hefty dowry as reason enough to take her on.

Theatre review: The Taming of the Shrew (Propeller)

The second of Ed Hall's Propeller shows that Dugald Bruce-Lockhart has revived for another tour is perhaps my least favourite Shakespeare comedy, and a problematic one in anyone's book, The Taming of the Shrew. Baptista Minola (Chris Myles) is a wealthy Paduan merchant whose younger daughter Bianca (Arthur Wilson) is much sought-after by the men of the city. But their hopes are threatened by Baptista's decree that before she marries her elder sister has to find a husband first - Katherine (Dan Wheeler) is notorious for her terrible temper. Some of her suitors hatch a plan to pose as tutors to get close to Bianca and compete for her affections; while for the obstacle in their way they've enlisted Petruchio (Vince Leigh,) who's willing to take on Katherine in return for her sizeable sodwry. But a wife with a mind of her own doesn't suit him and he proceeds to "tame" her into submission.

Theatre review: Kiss Me Kate

My patience for the books of musicals is less than legendary, but I've mostly learned to deal with their lackadaisical approach to storytelling by just trying to ignore it in the hope that it'll go away. It doesn't always work though, and despite going in quite optimistic after hearing raves from various sources including my sister, my first experience of Cole Porter's classic musical Kiss Me Kate was a frustrating one. Actor/director Fred Graham (Alex Bourne) is staging a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew with himself as Petruchio opposite his ex-wife Lilli Vannessi (Hannah Waddingham) as Katherina. She still holds a torch for him despite her engagement to a general with political aspirations (Mark Heenehan) and when she discovers the flowers she thought were for her were actually meant for the show's Bianca, Lois (Holly Dale Spencer,) her real anger spills over into the show and derails the performance.

Theatre review: The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare's Globe)

It's far from being one of my favourite Shakespeares but The Taming of the Shrew has been cropping up a lot lately and now comes to Shakespeare's Globe in a production I was mostly looking forward to because Samantha Spiro would be taking on the role of Katherina. An incredibly tricky comedy to stage for a modern audience, it's one I always feel has to be overcome rather than simply interpreted. All the eligible bachelors of Padua are after the beautiful heiress Bianca, youngest daughter of Baptista. But before any of her suitors can win her hand, Baptista insists that his older daughter Katherina be married off first. This will be harder than it seems, as Katherina is famed for her bad temper. Enter Petruchio (Simon Paisley Day,) who says he'll not only marry the "Shrew" for her hefty dowry, but also tame her (through starvation and sleep deprivation) into the perfect wife.

Theatre review: The Taming of the Shrew (RSC / RST & tour)

The last time the RSC tried their hand at a bit of shrew-taming, they went for a literal approach that didn't sugarcoat the misogyny in Shakespeare's play. Which is all very powerful and thought-provoking, but unless you're an actual misogynist it's also rather unpleasant. Lucy Bailey's The Taming of the Shrew is a much less brutal, more ambiguous telling of the story that tries to find the soulmates in Petruchio and Katherina, but remains problematic.

Proving once again that the deep thrust stage doesn't mean you can't have interesting sets, Ruth Sutcliffe turns the whole diving board into a giant bed. Bailey has not only included the induction scene but embraced it, and it's Christopher Sly, under the misapprehension that he's a lord, who's tucked up under the covers watching the play-within-a-play. Casting Nick Holder, an actor who's never been afraid to make himself look grotesque, as Sly, sets the tone for a scatological production, and Holder frequently pops up to steal the show in literally shameless fashion. Despite the 1940s Italian setting, Lisa Dillon's Katherina is entirely a modern-day ladette, constantly drunk, chain-smoking, spitting, vomiting and pissing on the stage. So her Petruchio matches her, his inappropriate wedding attire here consisting of him turning up topless and covered in marker pen, as if fresh from the stag do. Although, since he's played by David Caves, the production like the poster image is basically a series of excuses to get him to take his shirt off anyway.