Theater review
If you’re unsure how you feel about Shakespeare’s morally difficult and dubiously comedic play “The Taming of the Shrew,” the clever but muddled adaptation now running at Union Arts Center probably won’t clarify things.
For those who don’t remember ”Shrew” very well (or who remember the perfect 1999 film adaptation “10 Things I Hate About You” too well), let me walk you through it.
Lucentio (Ayo Tushinde) and his servant Tranio (Pilar O’Connell) arrive in Padua and are ready to meet all the ladies, until Lucentio espies the beautiful, young Bianca (Rachel Guyer-Mafune) and falls in love. But, oh no, Bianca’s rich dad Baptista (Jasmine Joshua) decrees no one can “have access to” Bianca (ew) until someone takes her shrewish older sister Katherine (Jocelyn Maher) off his hands.
Enter Petruchio (Arjun Pande), who has ”come to wive it wealthily in Padua” and agrees to help Lucentio out by marrying Katherine for her money. Petruchio tells Baptista that Katherine wants to marry him (not true, though on first sight they clearly found each other smoking hot), then begins his campaign to torture her into submission. He embarrasses her at their wedding by showing up in a beer helmet and jorts, then takes her to his house, where he denies her food and sleep until she agrees with everything he says. Comedy!
In the meantime, Lucentio and his old friend Hortensio (Melanie Godsey), who is also in love with Bianca, disguise themselves as tutors so they can woo her. One of them wins, identities are revealed, there are a few more weddings. Don’t worry about it too much.
As directed by Bobbin Ramsey (formerly of Washington Ensemble Theatre and The Horse in Motion), who co-adapted the script with Gabrielle Hoyt, “Shrew” leans into the script’s absurdity — Baptista leads Bianca and Kate around on honest-to-God leashes — and away from its innate odiousness.
While the original script frames the play as though it’s being performed for a drunken man, this version frames the story with performances from Jocelyn and Arjun. Our lead actors, in character as themselves, chat to the audience before the show, assuring you (in scripted dialogue) that they’re there to “provide a little bit of context” before breaking down into cliched bickering: He interrupts her, she gets frustrated, he gets mad that she’s frustrated, etc. Another pre-show gag gives the actors a chance to gaslight Arjun before he, as Petruchio, does the same to Katherine.
Ramsey’s work has long displayed an affinity and facility for the bizarre, and “Shrew” gives her a lot to work with. Half the characters operate in disguise, they’re all named Grumio, Gremio, Tranio, Licio, Cambio — the absurdity is baked in.
To make things even more confusing, this seven-actor cast supplements its ranks with a few identical hand puppets (designed by Annett Mateo) in smaller roles, which are all voiced like parrots and impossible to tell apart. That the production knows and plays up how convoluted this play is doesn’t make it any less confusing for an audience.
More specificity in many of the performances (most of the actors play multiple roles) would go a long way in terms of comedic and narrative legibility.
Aside from great, emotionally detailed performances from Maher and Pande (and an impressive pinch-hitter performance from Godsey, who stepped in at the last minute), many of the characters felt as flat and cartoonish as Parmida Ziaei’s exuberant sets, reminiscent of a midcentury game show.
But even the excellent individual elements never gelled into a coherent whole, and I left with so many questions. Why is Hortensio a Texan? Why do so many period pieces make someone eat an apple with a knife? Why did Union Arts Center program this play only to spend so much time apologizing for it?
“The Taming of the Shrew” isn’t just a problematic play — the problem is the play.
In her director’s note, Ramsey points out that Shakespeare was exploring but not condoning the gender dynamics of the 1590s (when the play was written), and that the play was divisive even in its day.
Shakespeare is open to endless interpretation, but watching the brilliant, spirited Katherine diminish into submission says plenty, and that’s right there in the text. All gender is a performance on some level, but a successful performance of womanhood — and of obedient white womanhood in particular — has historically meant safety.
Ramsey and Hoyt were very explicitly thinking about what it means to produce this play in the age of the tradwife, 2025’s ultimate performance of feminine subservience, which ramped up culturally as rights for people who are not cisgender men started to be rolled back.
Petruchio may be performing his dominance of Katherine for the sake of other men, but that doesn’t mean he’s not doing it: He abuses Katherine until her rebellious spirit breaks, and that’s an awful and complicated thing to watch. Ramsey, a talented director, has crafted a genuinely stunning final moment for our two leads, but ultimately it just reminded me how excruciating and powerful an emotional experience of this play can be, rather than an intellectual one.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yakimaherald.com ’
