Most productions of “The Taming of the Shrew” cut the prologue. In it, Shakespeare creates a frame by having a Lord, who is returning from a hunt, find a beggar named Christopher Sly dead drunk outside an alehouse. He takes him home and plans a ruse to make him think he’s a nobleman by providing a feast and dressing him in rich clothing.
The Lord even has his page dress up as a woman and pretend to be the man’s humble, dutiful wife shedding overjoyed tears to see her “noble lord” returned to health after seven years of thinking he was a “poor and loathsome beggar.” When the Lord encounters the players on their way to his house, he enlists them to put on the comedy we’re about to see. This casts the tale of Katherina’s “taming” as part of an elaborate joke for his own amusement.
To her credit, Marti Lyons, who adapted and directed “The Taming of the Shrew” for Court Theatre, didn’t just abandon the induction. Instead, she crafted a brand-new setup for the play-within-a-play that reflects a contemporary feminist sensibility.
Her conceit is that we are attending “The Shrew Experience,” a night of immersive entertainment “for only the wealthiest of participants.” As part of it, five guests will perform in “The Taming of the Shrew” for the very first time, but their names have been changed to protect their anonymity. These guests are Lord K (Mark L. Montgomery), who will portray Baptista; his wife Lady K (Melisa Soledad Pereyra), who is playing Katherina; Lord B (Nate Santana), who is Lucentio; and his wife Lady B (Netta Walker), who is Bianca. The final guest, in a sly reference to Shakespeare, is Chris Sly (Ryder Dean McDaniel), who is Tranio, Lucentio’s servant.
The problem is that these special guests are inducted into their new roles in a confusing show complete with attendants wearing shrew heads. Unless you’ve read the program card with its brief explanation and amusing fake bios of the five and, better yet, had a chance to look over the articles in the digital program, you’re likely to have a problem figuring out what’s going on.
While the basic story — set in Padua, Italy — follows Shakespeare’s, the behavior of the characters does not. As you may recall, wealthy Baptista insists that his “shrewish” older daughter Katherina be married before her beautiful and well-behaved younger sister Bianca, who has several suitors. So the suitors, especially Hortensio (Samuel Taylor), convince Petruchio (Jay Whittaker), who has come to town to find a wealthy wife, to court Katherina, so Bianca can marry one of them.
Petruchio negotiates terms with Baptista, has a stormy meeting with Katherina, turns up late for the wedding and behaves boorishly, then drags her off to his place, where he “tames” her using tactics like starvation and sleep deprivation, until she says and does anything he wants and they return to Padua for Bianca’s wedding.
Meanwhile, Bianca is wooed by Hortensio disguised as a music teacher and old Gremio (Dexter Zollicoffer), but they don’t stand a chance against Lucentio, who disguises himself as a schoolmaster and also switches places with his servant Tranio to be closer to his love. More deceptions ensue when the approval of Lucentio’s father is required, but it all works out in the end, including the fact that Hortensio goes off and marries a rich Widow (Monica West).
Lady B’s Bianca, played to the hilt by Walker in a puffy, pink, off-the-shoulder gown (costumes by Kotryna Hilko), is the antithesis of Shakespeare’s perfect “mild” daughter. She’s a sex kitten eager to make out, but that’s no surprise since her husband, Lord B, is portraying her beloved Lucentio. The anger with which she delivers part of Katherina’s controversial closing speech about the duty wives owe their husbands is no surprise, either, but the onstage same-sex dalliance between Santana’s Lord B as Lucentio and McDaniel’s Chris Sly as his servant Tranio is totally incongruous.
The complicated relationship between Whittaker’s Petruchio and Pereyra’s Lady K as Katherina works better than expected, partly because they have some chemistry. They’re also well-matched, like so many of Shakespeare’s sparring couples, and their encounters are highly charged erotically, with shades of S&M (like when he wraps her in a microphone cord) that make the play’s cruelty at least semi-sensical.
Most of the acting is strong, but the comic highlights, which are too few, come from Alex Weisman as Petruchio’s servant Grumio. Montgomery’s Lord K as Baptista is also funny, but in a more subtle way.
Jackie Fox’s stunning scenic design, Maximo Grano De Oro’s lighting, Matthew Chapman’s sound design, Ethan Korvne’s music and Hilko’s eclectic costumes combine to make Court’s “The Taming of the Shrew” agreeable to look at and listen to.
Unfortunately, Lyons’s adaptation is choppy, the points she’s trying to make aren’t all that clear, and she needs to rework her framing device so we can immediately grasp what’s going on without having to resort to the program.
I’d drop the idea of actors playing special guests playing characters in a play-within-a-play. The results border on incomprehensible.
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