by Deirdre Donovan
There's nothing tame about
Phyllida Lloyd's new gender-bending production of The Taming of the Shrew
at the Public’s Delacorte Theater in Central Park. With an all-female
cast, Lloyd takes Shakespeare’s early comedy about love and marriage and jazzes
it up with a beauty pageant. And with Janet McTeer and Cush Jumbo playing
opposite each other as the two eccentric lovers, Petruchio and Katherina, Lloyd
gives a new twist to the drama.
Lloyd is that rare director who’s
equally at home in the commercial and classical theater worlds. Her
mega-hit musical Mama Mia! enjoyed a 14-year run on Broadway and is
still touring around the globe. Her more recent achievements are her
“prison plays” that reimagined Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Henry
IV performed within the walls of a women’s correctional institution
by inmates. Originating in the West End, they had brief runs at
St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. Now she pushes the theatrical envelope
again with her Shrew. And, if she’s not the first director to
stage an all-female Shrew, she has the distinction of mounting it during
the quadracentenary anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.
Although the critic W. H. Auden
claimed that The Shrew “is the only play of Shakespeare’s that is a complete
failure,” many disagree with his harsh judgment. Cole Porter liked it so
well that he wrote the music and lyrics for Kiss Me, Kate, a musical
version of The Taming of the Shrew. And The Shrew has been a perennial on stage in various adaptations, including
a memorable outing at the Delacorte with Raul Julia and Meryl Streep in 1978.
Janet McTeer and Cush Jumbo
photos
by Joan Marcus
Forgot the story? Well,
it’s basically a romantic tale in which we meet the merchant Baptista Minola of
Padua and his two daughters: the elder—and shrewish--Katherina (wooed by
Petruchio) and the younger—and supposedly sweeter--Bianca (triply wooed by
Lucentio, Hortensio, and Gremio). Baptista has an embargo in place for
any suitors of his daughters: His younger daughter Bianca can’t be
promised in marriage til Katherina is wed. The rub, of course, is that
Katherina frightens off most eligible bachelors. But the mercenary
Petruchio, who’s “come to wive it wealthily in Padua,” is not the least daunted
by her wild and unruly nature. He rather likes her high spirits and plans
to “woo her in her own humor.” Remarkably, his strategy—showing her how
ugly her shrewish behavior is—wins the day and heart of Katherina.
Rose Gilmore and Gayle Rainkin
They marry, Katherina undergoes a
positive personality change, and we witness the evolved Katherina stepping into
the role of a normal wife and educating recalcitrant wives to do
likewise. In ironic contrast, Bianca, who’s eloped with Lucentio, becomes
more shrewish in the final scenes. And we are left to ponder just who is
the real shrew of the play.
Lloyd’s Shrew is smart and
snappy. She omits the two-act Induction with its drunken
tinker Christopher Sly, sacrificing the play-within-a-play conceit but
strengthening her own vision of the Bard’s play that intensely focuses on the
battle of wills between Petruchio and Katherina. She creates a very
streamlined production here that clocks in at only 2 hours with no
intermission.
Janet McTeer (center) and the company
Though she jettisons the
Induction with its imagery of Shakespeare’s native Warwickshire, Lloyd
comically beefs up the play proper with a beauty pageant competition, with
pointed references to a front-running presidential candidate who was once a
beauty pageant mogul. Indeed, the pageant motif threads through the
entire production and serves as a reminder that many men today (you know who
you are) judge women by their physiques and looks rather than true
character. This show-within-a show adds a lot of political texture to the
drama, largely because the voice-over for the emcee is a parody of a former
Miss Universe pageant owner. Yes, the same bigwig who is running for
president this year.
Shifting genders, the femmes on
stage do a remarkable job at impersonating all the dramatic characters tucked
into the Bard’s play. McTeer, as Petruchio, captures his braggadocio and
cunning wit as he woos the contrary Katherina. Cush is ideal as
Katherina, equally capable of projecting the wild outcast and, later on, the
conforming wife of Petruchio. Other notable performances are turned in by
Gayle Rankin, as the deceptively gentle daughter Bianca and Rosa Gilmore as
Lucentio and the Musician. A shout out to Judy Gold as the pantaloon
figure Gremio, who momentarily breaks character to complain about the
production-in-progress being run by “chicks.”
No question that Lloyd likes to
rattle theatrical tradition here. And she has a fine creative team to
support her in her daring venture. Mark Thompson wears two hats here as
set and costume designer. His circus-styled set comes replete with
trailers and the traditional striped bunting. And his costumes run the
gamut from the glitzy to ragtag. Robert Wierzel’s lighting is white-hot
for the beauty pageant vignettes and Petruchio’s’s love tests but rightly tones
it down for transformational moments of major characters. Mark Menards’
sound design is at its best at the finale with an edgy rendering of Joan Jett’s
rock song “Bad Reputation.” What could be better to serve as an anthem
for any woman who dares to be, well, herself?
Okay, Katherina’s Act 5
“obedience speech” troubles many modern women. And, yes, it does uphold
the antiquated hierarchical relationship of men holding a higher rank than
women in society and echoes St. Paul’s epistle admonishing wives to submit
themselves to their husbands. But put away those tomatoes, folks, and lend
an ear to the speech’s “undersong” (to borrow a term from the critic Harold
Bloom). Katherina is more sophisticated than her words reveal at first
blush. Rather than surrendering here, she is coyly accepting a social
role as an ordinary wife, which hopefully opens the door to future marital
happiness. Indeed she has found true love in Petruchio, who, in turn,
reciprocates the sentiment. Surprisingly, Katherina’s “obedience speech”
dovetails with Ulysses “degree speech” in Act 1 of Troilus and Cressida ("observe
degree, priority, and place"), and both echo with the Elizabethan world
picture of rank and hierarchy. And, incidentally, Troilus and Cressida
arrives at the Delacorte in July. So don’t forget to mark your
calendar for this darker comedy, which also explores a woman’s role in society.
Returning to The Shrew, its
humorous possibilities are freshly plumbed in Lloyd's savvy new
production. And with its not-so-subtle jests aimed at a current
presidential candidate, it perhaps can help you to reflect better on who might
be the best man—or woman—to occupy the Oval Office after Obama exits next
January.
Through June 26th.
At the Delacorte Theatre in
Central Park at 81st Street at Central Park West or 79th Street and
Fifth Avenue.
For more ticket information
please visit www.publictheater.org.