The Taming of the Shrew (review)

When the curtain rose on this production of The Taming of the Shrew, the exhibit hall adjoining the theatre featured “Shakespeare’s Sisters: Voices of English and European Women Writers, 1500–1700.” The display showcased efforts by early modern women to express themselves in a variety of written materials, mostly unpublished, from Biblical annotations to translations. It was a fitting complement to Aaron Posner’s Shrew, which set out to portray a strong woman in a play notorious for its sexist overtones. Realized by Kate Eastwood Norris, Katherine seemed fiercely independent, ready to battle to the last against patriarchal institutions that would curtail her freedom. Posner transported her to the Old West, shifting the action from sixteenth-century Italy to nineteenth-century America. Yet despite the strong cast and high production values, Posner’s attempt to work through Katherine’s struggle for independence was not entirely consistent, and depended heavily upon a romantic-comedy framework that was superimposed upon the story to conceal its rough edges.

In explaining his vision, Posner cited HBO’s Deadwood as an inspiration, though acknowledged that his was not the first take on this Shakespearean comedy to use an Old West backdrop. Indeed, during the past decade, the National Players, the Utah Shakespeare Festival, and the First Folio Shakespeare Festival have all presented Western Shrews. As Barbara Hodgdon observes in her Arden edition of the play, this tradition stretches back more than a century, to “Selig Polyscope’s 1911 The Cowboy and the Shrew.” The appeal of the setting for those mounting Shrew is understandable. During the 1880s, the American frontier was not yet “tamed.” Independent spirits such as Katherine peopled the territories, as did adventurers like Petruchio bent on making fortunes by any means available.

Tony Cisek’s set designs effectively captured the period: a two-story wooden saloon for Padua doubled as a dude ranch belonging to Petruchio, complete with a chandelier made of antlers. An expanse of purple sky could be glimpsed through a set of double doors up center, underscoring the importance of American myths about the wilderness as a site of opportunity and adventure. At the heart of Posner’s interpretation was Norris’s Katherine. As the house lights dimmed, she appeared down center, hunched over a saloon table, sighing and knocking back whiskeys. She was dressed as a man, sporting a Stetson, riding boots, and britches, in contrast with the other women around her, who wore period-appropriate dresses. She was the only female openly carrying a weapon, and the six-shooter on her hip gave her an air of danger. What distressed Katherine was not being out of step with her peers but being unable to find a mate who appreciated her. Before the audience heard any of Shakespeare’s language, they were treated to a blues song, “That Kind of Love,” performed by musician Cliff Eberhardt in the role of a nonce character: the Blind Balladeer. “Everybody wants to be in love,” he crooned, and when the title of “Kate the curst” was subsequently applied to Katherine, it was implicitly linked to romantic dissatisfaction.

As the plot unfolded, the Blind Balladeer remained on stage, seated before his piano, guitar close at hand, ready to help the audience understand events in relation to the conventions of romantic comedy. Dramaturg Michele Osherow suggested that this character functioned as a proxy for Sly, who was cut from the production. In this light, however, the Blind Balladeer most resembled the Sly of the anonymously-authored The Taming of A Shrew (1594), for he continuously commented on interactions between characters. When Hortensio clumsily disguised himself...