THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
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In the festive opening scene of Shakespeare Repertory’s production of The Taming of the Shrew a peasant couple dressed in rags yells and fights its way onstage, followed by a band of merrymakers adorned in a rainbow of shredded fabrics and bursting with song. So director Barbara Gaines succinctly establishes the romantic comedy’s circuslike energy. The cantankerous couple’s cat fight foreshadows the ensuing tangle between the sharp-tongued Petruchio and the shrewish Katherine, whom he hopes to tame. The roaring crowd onstage prepares us for the energized shenanigans and mischievous romancing that will serve as a backdrop to Petruchio and Kate’s war of words and wills. Kate’s gently authoritative father Baptista runs an affluent household where servants seem to be propelled across the stage as they hasten to his bidding, while Baptista floats among them undisturbed. Comic interlopers–the lovelorn and money-hungry suitors of Kate’s younger, infinitely more amiable sister–connive to disguise themselves and woo fair Bianca undetected by her father.
This happy confusion of concealed identities and cuckolded suitors surrounds Kate and Petruchio (Kristine Thatcher and Scott Wentworth) but does not drown them out. They command the stage like the main event at a wrestling match. On their first encounter the couple repeatedly land on the floor, not in embraces but in headlocks. Finally, by literally forcing Kate’s hands into her father’s, Petruchio declares himself the winner of the match and of Kate’s hand in marriage.
Though the minor characters endure less emotional turmoil, the supporting players create strong, often fascinating presences. No cardboard beauty, Nancy Voigts makes Bianca a smart coquette, capable of winning her father’s devotion then disobeying him behind his back. As Hortensio, the suitor who disguises himself to be near Bianca, Larry Yando looks wonderfully foolish in a squashed false nose. Tim Barker’s wild-eyed messenger Biondello, his hair raised on end as if caught in a permanent wind, froze the action just by running onstage. And as Tranio, the savvy servant who trades places with his slow-witted master, Ross Lehman purposefully exaggerated each gesture and snort, sweetly mocking a foppish aristocracy.
