The Taming of the Shrew
Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival
2111 Sansom St.
Until June 20, various
(215) 496-8001
www.phillyshakespeare.org
Cue the overture, a peppy number like something out of an old Hollywood movie. An ensemble of zany characters scurry and scamper across the stage - we can tell they're zany because they bump into each other and wear wacky accessories like monocles and bowler hats. Two minutes in, it's already clear: this is going to be one of those madcap romantic comedies, where characters meet cute and banter cuter - which is pretty strange, considering that this work was written in the 1590s.
The Taming of the Shrew, one of Shakespeare's early comedies, is the matchmaking tale of two sisters, one as pleasant as the other is churlish. The basic ingredients of love triangles and seemingly-unlikely-but-actually-pretty-obvious pairings already exist in the text; this Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival production plays them up by giving the casts' wardrobe a 1930s gloss.
As the play's action begins, suitors are falling all over themselves to marry Bianca (Christie Parker), the sweeter of the two sisters, but the girls' father (William Braak) will not permit this until he can find someone for Katherine (Teresa Castracane), the shrew referred to in the play's title. Two of Bianca's admirers luckily happen upon Petruchio (Damon Bonetti), essentially the literary forerunner of K.Fed, a man who seeks a rich wife no matter her temperament.
Castracane plays Katherine as if she just walked out of the newsroom in His Girl Friday, spinning no-nonsense repartee out of the Bard's iambic pentameter. She turns up her nose at Bonetti's slick Petruchio, but from the first lingering glance it's clear where their story is headed. Meanwhile, Parker imbues Bianca with a Miss America-style wholesomeness that's almost as cute as her vintage dresses. Watching her blush and giggle as she falls for Lucentio (David Raphaely), an aw-shucks rich boy posing as a tutor, makes for a satisfying b-plot set against Kate and Petruchio's more volatile saga.
Things bop along nicely until the screwball comedy conceit begins to fall flat somewhere around the fourth act. At home with the newly-married Kate and Petruchio, a bare set and ragged clothes belie the zing of earlier acts. "This is a way to kill a wife with kindness," Petruchio says as he "tames" Katherine, replacing her pluck bit by bit with deference. It's true that you can't rewrite Shakespeare, and it's easy to regard this play as anti-feminist - some deconstructionist could probably even tell you why the opposite is true - but dammit, Katherine Hepburn never would have put up with that crap. Kiss me, Kate? Shrew's Katherine obliges. But for any self-respecting screwball siren, the proper response would still be, "I'll kiss you when I'm good and ready."
This production of Shrew is lively, light and easy on the eyes. But as for whether anyone actually gets tamed, that may just be a matter of interpretation.
