The Taming of the Shrew

Overview

Mounting a production of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew is a brave move. Central to the plot is the eponymous shrew, Kate, and the process through which she is trained into submission by her chauvinistic husband, Petruchio. Surrounding this are the citizens of Padua, whose mercantile concerns weigh human life against gold ingots. At the very least, Sydney's theatre-going population will find this topic controversial.

Director Marion Potts has thus cast the die with her production for Bell Shakespeare. Yet, in an effort to stave off a riot in the dress circle, she has populated her Padua with an all-female ensemble. Not only does this playfully invert the tradition of all-male casts, but Potts hoped that this would make it easier for audiences to look beyond the sexism of the text and engage with its deeper political satire.

It seems that only half of her plan succeeded.

Potts' production is entertaining, with Jeanette Cronin's Petruchio and Sandy Gore's Baptista standing out as strong comic performances. The smaller roles are all filled with funny moments and the clowning slapstick is tightly executed. The audience's reaction to even some of the darker sequences, such as Petruchio's efforts to tame Lotte St Clair's Kate, were continually punctuated with laughter.

And this is where my problem rests. This production does not properly engage with an important, underlying human rights issue; characters are abused throughout this play. Seeing a woman being cruel to another woman should be just as moving as that of a man doing the same. Even the attempts to satirise merchants with too much money did not completely undermine them, because their victims were equally drawn as caricatures.

For example, at the close of the play Kate's infamous speech is delivered with honesty; she lectures without irony on why a woman should be subservient to her husband. The only retort offered is by her sister, Bianca (Emily Rose Brennan). But up to and including the moment of her interjection, Bianca has done nothing but chug back glasses of champagne and act the drunken fool. The audience's response was to laugh at her slurred voice of dissent.

Perhaps this says more about the audience on the night I attended, but it still makes me ask why stage a controversial play and then neuter it? Shakespeare has written plenty of other romantic comedies that are lighter in their political touch.

When you do go to see this production, sit back and enjoy yourself. But afterwards, take note of what you laughed at and give thought to the people in this world for whom such dreadful conditions are anything but 400 years in the past.