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by William Shakespeare, directed by Miles Potter

Stratford Festival, Festival Theatre, Stratford

May 26-November 1, 2003

"The No Good, the Bad and the Ugly"

There's no point in beating around the sagebrush.  "The Taming of the Shrew" that opened Stratford's 51st season is one of the worst productions of the play in the festival's history.  The Wild West setting is not the problem; rather it's how the setting is misused.  Add to that sloppy direction and poor acting, and the show becomes one actively to avoid.

Stratford had a big hit with a Wild West "Shrew" in 1954 directed by Tyrone Guthrie.  A time when men were men and women were in the kitchen is a good period to set a play often accused of misogyny.  Director Miles Potter, however, has decided that this "Shrew" is not just a western but a spaghetti western, with little regard for the consequences.  Graham Abbey's Petruchio appears in a long coat framed in a doorway or in a serape at a saloon entrance accompanied by reminiscences of Ennio Morricone's music for Sergio Leone's "Fistful of Dollars" films.  Why doesn't this work?  The main characteristic of Clint Eastwood's character, the "Man with No Name", is his silence; Petruchio's main characteristic is his love of speaking.  A garrulous Clint Eastwood?--I don't think so.  Besides this, Clint Eastwood's character is a loner while Petruchio has a servant.  Potter transforms Grumio into Petruchio's sidekick, but, switching sub-genres, forces Wayne Best to imitate Walter Brennan.  This alone makes nonsense of the spaghetti western set-up. 

What is worse, Potter has decided that the show is not just a spaghetti western but a spoof of a spaghetti western, so much so that virtually all the would-be humour in the show is generated by pratfalls, slapstick violence, crowd reactions to the sight of guns or spitting or to the sound of hoof beats or theme music on Jim Neil's soundtrack--in short anything but what occurs in Shakespeare's play.  Potter, usually a fine director, has fallen into the anything-for-a-joke method of directing comedy that has reigned far too long at this festival.  You can't see the play for the schlock.

Besides this, the added schlock often goes counter to what the text dictates.  Lucentio (Kyle Blair) and his servant Tranio (Jonathan Goad) are said to look so much alike that one could pass for the other.  Yet, Potter has Lucentio blond and clean shaven and Tranio, dark-haired with beard and moustache and a thick Mexican accent.  Petruchio is said to be wealthy from an inheritance, yet the production portrays him as poor and thus misses the point of his intentional deprivation of Katherina at his house.  Again and again fundamental plot points are missed by cavalier disregard of the text.

It's not surprising that such a slovenly approach encourages poor performances from some of the Festival's best actors.  Graham Abbey may be made to look like Clint Eastwood,  but as soon as he opens his mouth he falls into his all-purpose Shakespeare mode and might as well be playing Prince Hal or Romeo.  He gives no suggestion of guile, greed, ardour or spite that would help explain Petruchio's interest in taming such a shrew.  For her part Seana McKenna is totally unconvincing as Katherina.  Giving her an array of jiu-jitsu moves doesn't help explain her character.  Her voice loses all quality at a yell, which is frequent and thus ineffective.  Potter's conceit is that Katherina actually comes to love Petruchio, but McKenna gives us no clue as to why.  Does she enjoy humiliation?

Jonathan Goad's outfit suggests he is supposed to be Mexican.  Yet though the play his accent makes excursions into Castilian and Irish before settling down into Italian.  Whatever he thinks he's doing, you can hardly understand a word he says.  The same goes for Wayne Best.  Walter Brennan you could understand--not Best's imitation which, in any case, soon grows tiresome.

Anyone who has seen Deborah Hay in Toronto knows she has a pleasant voice and can belt out a great country tune.  Here she is forced to act Katherina's sister Bianca in a silly, high-pitched tone and the only time she sings is intentionally off-key, the words incomprehensible.

Donald Carrier (Hortensio) Paul Dunn (Biondello) and Paul Soles (Katherina's father, Baptista Minola) all give passable, uninteresting performances. Aaron Franks creates a fine miniature portrait of Petruchio's layabout servant Curtis.  But the finest performances come from Kyle Blair (a clear and intelligent Lucentio), Barry MacGregor (a very British Man from Mantua) and  Brad Rudy (a Scottish Gremio).  The last two could teach the company much about how to do an accent and still be clearly understood and funny.

   

Patrick Clark's detailed period design and Steven Hawkins's subtle lighting both capture the flavour and atmosphere of the Old West with greater integrity than anything else in the production. 

 

Potter's one good insight is to have Petruchio kneel to raise Katherina up after she gives her infamous speech extolling woman's inferiority to man in Act 5.  It is one moment of humanity at the end of a dreadfully unfunny evening.  To treat a play by Shakespeare as a clothesline for a series of pop cultural references, as Potter does, insults both the play and the audience.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Seana McKenna and Graham Abbey. ©2003 gabbeyonline.