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by William Shakespeare, directed by Chris Abraham

Stratford Festival, Festival Theatre, Stratford

June 5-October 10, 2015

Kate: “I see a woman may be made a fool,

  If she had not a spirit to resist.”

Chris Abraham’s production of The Taming of the Shrew is one of the most intelligent versions I have seen and it is certainly the best that the Stratford Festival has offered since Richard Monette’s great production in 1988.  Abraham’s production is not perfect – there is too much unnecessary shouting and slapstick throughout – but he is one of the first directors at Stratford to realize that the play is much more ambiguous than it first appears.  Most productions take for granted that the play is simply a product of the misogyny of its period, even though England was ruled by a much-lauded woman.  Because of Abraham’s insights, audiences should now come away from the play seeing it instead as a more general critique of social hierarchies and institutions.

One way Abraham achieves this perspective is by including Shakespeare’s often-omitted Induction to the play.  Abraham realizes, as have many critics, that the Induction is essential in placing the main action of the play in an ironic context.  Before he gets to the Induction, however, the performance begins in quite an unpromising fashion.  As we enter the Festival Theatre, we see a clothes rack filled with costumes on hangers, an actor choosing a costume, a musician playing and a wardrobe person sewing on the sleeve of what will be Kate’s wedding dress.  This is the now-tiresome trope of “See – actors will be performing a play!” that I have already seen used at least four times in the past year. 

Eventually, Deborah Hay, who will play Kate, enters only partially in costume and announces that she will sing a song by Thomas d’Urfey (1653-1723) about marriage.  She is joined by other women of the cast and then Tom Rooney, who will play Tranio, enters and explains outright the symbolism of the costume rack.  He tells us the play is about perception and role-playing and that clothing is a sign of gender role.  Courtship itself is a form of elaborate role-playing.  Just when you think that Abraham is becoming oppressively metatheatrical and self-indulgent, a dispute breaks out in the audience.  A drunken patron with a British accent, who claims to be a blogger, objects to what the director is doing and wants him to honour the text of the play.  He makes fun of Abraham’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream last year  as “My Big Fat Gay Wedding” and of the Shaw Festival’s increasing inclusion of Irish plays.

When he passes out on stage, Shakespeare’s real Induction finally begins.  The name of the drunken patron, played by Ben Carlson who will be Petruchio, is Christopher Sly as it is in Shakespeare’s Induction.  Hay takes on the role of the Lord and decides to trick Sly when he wakes up that he is a lord himself and married (though his “wife” is really a man dressed up as a woman).  The Lord tells Sly that he has a troupe of actors at hand who will put on a play to entertain him.  

Thus, we have to see the main action of Shrew as a play-within-a play and one aimed by the actors at someone they have perceived as a boor.  To have a page play the “wife” is already in Shakespeare, but to have a woman play the Lord is Abraham’s invention and reinforces the theme of role-playing and appearances that Rooney has already announced.  It also makes the Induction show a woman playing a trick on a boorish man, the reverse of the situation in the main action.  The Induction, with Abrahams additions, thus forces us to pay more attention than usual to who people are versus who they claim to be throughout the rest of the play.

This process begins early on when Abraham has Lucentio (Cyrus Lane) and Tranio make a great show of changing their garb and their roles as master and servant in Lucentio’s plan of winning Katherina’s sister Bianca (Sarah Afful).  Abraham emphasizes this because the Padua of Shrew is hierarchical not just in terms of gender (males dominating females) but in class (aristocrats dominating the poor, masters dominating servants).  Indeed, the insistence of Baptista (Peter Hutt) that his elder daughter Kate must marry before his younger daughter Bianca is a sign of hierarchical thinking.  Masters switching clothes with servants is an old practice in comedy, but it does make us wonder whether this reversal in hierarchy in the Bianca subplot will be reflected in some similar reversal in the Katherina main plot.

Later in the play when Petruchio refers to Kate as his “chattels”, the line gets a gasp.  Strangely though, when Baptista bargains with Tranio and the old man Gremio (Michael Spencer-Davis) over who will provide Bianca with the greatest wealth, all three men are treating Bianca in exactly the same way and we think their bargaining funny.  Petruchio’s views are thus only an extreme version of the other men around him.

Yet, from the beginning Abraham never treats Petruchio’s pursuit of Kate nor his taming of her as fully humorous.  The usual reason why Petruchio should want to take on “curs’t Kate” is both because it is a challenge and because he will have her dowry.  But why should a man deliberately choose a “shrew” that he will have to tame?  He can’t be looking for love but for a chance to show off his powers of domination.  And if that’s the case, why does a man in a patriarchal society need to show off his ability to dominate a woman?

Abraham makes us think of these questions by emphasizing lines in the play that too often are missed.  While Kate herself is often called “mad”, she says that people will refer to her as “mad Petruchio’s wife”.  Even more telling is the reaction of Petruchio’s servant Curtis (Brad Rudy) to hearing Grumio (Brian Tree) relate the couple’s ill-fated trip to Petruchio’s home.  Curtis remarks, “By this reckoning he is more shrew than she”. 

Curtis’s remarks turns out to be true since Petruchio treats his servants as meanly as he treats Kate.  Directors usually have much fun in peopling Petruchio’s household with halfwits and blockheads.  Abraham, however, makes us wonder why Petruchio would ever hire men who were bound to be incompetent and then continually berate them for their incompetence?  Abraham depicts Petruchio’s maltreatment of his serving men as unfair and even Kate perceives it as so.  When Petruchio chews out a servant for spilling water, even though it is on her dress, Kate defends the servant, saying, “Patience, I pray you; 'twas a fault unwilling” – a odd turn of events when she who has never shown patience asks patience of Petruchio for someone else.

Abraham has Kate’s insight into Petruchio’s behaviour come in the “sun-and-moon” scene of Act 4.  When Petruchio insists that the sun is really the moon, and he insists that his wife must agree with what he says even if it is contrary to fact or even if he later contradicts himself.  If she does not agree they will not continue their journey back to Padua.  Abraham has Hay as Kate closely assess the nature of her husband’s bizarre behaviour and has her realize that if this is the game he is playing, she can play along to get what she wants.  Petruchio may think he has triumphed because Kate now agrees with whatever he says, but Kate now sees that by humouring her lunatic husband she can control him. 

This process has its natural conclusion in the contest of the three wives that concludes the play.  The fact that the three men – Petruchio, Lucentio and Hortensio (Mike Shara) – should bet on whose wife is most obedient, with the assent of Baptista and the other men present only shows how noxious the patriarchal society of Padua is that the women contend with.  Abraham has Hay as Kate deliver her infamous speech of submission to her husband in a way unlike any I have heard before.  Because of the general arc Abraham has given the play and because of the revelation of the “sun-and-moon” scene, Kate’s speech does not come across as a speech of submission as much as a speech of manipulation, where every word she says favouring submission is actually calculated to increase her lock on power over her husband.  Abraham seals this interpretation when he has Carlson’s Petruchio greet the end of the speech almost in tears and knock over the table of wagers as if they meant nothing.  Without having to change a word Abraham has made us view the final scene in a way precisely opposite to the way it is usually presented.  We can’t help but feel that Kate’s “taming” has in fact led to her learning a new, subtler and more effective way of dominating men. 

Hay’s performance as Kate has more nuance and intelligence and any performance of this role I have seen before.  When her Kate is playing the wildcat at home, lashing out at everyone including her sister, Hay gives us the sense that Kate is rebelling against the multiple levels of social confinement she suffers in the world of Padua.  Because of this, when Kate is taken to Petruchio’s home where she is starved and kept awake, we sympathize entirely with her and do not regard Petruchio’s actions as humorous.  In fact, they seem mad since to get his way he starves himself and gets no sleep.  Kate’s perception of how to survive and even thrive in her new situation allows Hay to give then character greater depth than previous interpretations have allowed.

Other standout performances in the large cast include Brian Tree’s wry take on Petruchio’s servant Grumio, Mike Shara’s woefully inept suitor Hortensio, Cyrus Lane’s suave suitor Lucentio and Michael Spencer-Davis hilarious impersonation of the rickety old man Gremio,

The main flaw in this otherwise excellent production is the licence Abraham gives Tom Rooney’s Tranio and Gordon S. Miller’s Biondello to do whatever they like.  It may be that since Abraham’s view of the play is fundamentally serious, that he felt the need to liven up the roles of Tranio and Biondello to maintain the sense of comedy.  Unfortunately, the comedy he gives the two falls into the anything-for-a-joke category with funny walks, funny voices, funny songs, and lots of slapstick.  Slapstick can be funny if it is varied but here there is so much knocking of heads into solid surfaces that it becomes tiresome.  Miller often delivers his lines so breathlessly they are incomprehensible.

This flaw aside, Abraham’s production of Shrew will be a real eye-opener for many who previously considered the play a simple farce.  After this production any production trying to promote a less complex view of the play will seem hopelessly old-fashioned.  We should feel grateful that Stratford has added such an insightful director as Abraham to its ranks.

            

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive. 

Photos: (from top) Deborah Hay as Kate with members of the company; Mike Shara as Hortensio, Sarah Afful as Bianca and Cyrus Lane as Lucentio; Ben Carlson as Petruchio and Deborah Hay as Kate. ©2015 David Hou.

For tickets, visit www.stratfordfestival.ca.