The Taming of the
Shrew American Players Theatre, 2011
Tom Strini – Third Coast Digest
A facebook friend recently vented some exasperation over the idea of the
American Players Theatre staging Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Her
widely-held point, of course, is that the wifely obedience the formerly defiant Kate adopts is morally
and politically indefensible in post-feminist 2011 America or — even in Renaissance Padua, for that
matter.
I saw the show Saturday, and I’m prepared to say, along with director Tim
Ocel and the cast: Not so fast with those feminist judgments.
In the last scenes, Ocel gathers the principals in a sort of Agatha Christie
drawing-room for Shakespeare’s grand summation. Petruchio (James Ridge), after an extended battle, has
married the notoriously ornery Kate (Tracy Michelle Arnold). Lucentio (Eric Parks) has married Kate’s
younger sister, Bianca (Ashley LaThrop) for her beauty and her celebrated sweetness. Hortensio, having
lost in his pursuit of Bianca, has married a widow (Greta Wohlrabe) for her money. The three married men
bet on which of their wives will respond obediently to their summons.
Only Petruchio bets on his wife.
He wins. Katherine responds to his call, and with an amiable modesty that
amazes everyone but her husband. She adds a long speech about the naturalness and value of wifely
obedience, the speech that most modern women would find most galling — on paper, anyway.
Ocel did not remake the play along feminist lines; he did The Taming of the Shrew as we know it. But he, Arnold and Ridge found something
generous and progressive in it, and those qualities rises to the top to redeem a speech that is
self-negating. Arnold met Ridge eye to eye as she delivered it, and their confident gazes transformed
Shakespeare’s words. Those gazes said: We’ve come to an understanding; regardless of what we say or show
to the world, we are willing partners in this life. We are fully ourselves only for surrendering to each
other.
Everything that happens in this funny, lively production supports that
reading of the finale. Ridge’s Petruchio begins as a rough and ready fellow, a brash, hard-drinking
adventurer. When we first see him, he’s done up like a Teddy Roosevelt Rough Rider. (B. Modern’s
costumes are crucial to this production; more on that later.) He terrifies his crew and he’s absurdly
quick to take offense. He is more or less the male equivalent of the spitfire Kate, who is in a constant
fury.
When Ridge witnesses Arnold’s daunting fury he sees both his worst self and
his salvation in it. He knows he needs to change, and in this wild woman sees his vehicle for change.
The genius in Ridge’s performance lies in the way he shows his gradual change under her unwitting
influence.
He changes her, too, but consciously, according to plan. He starves and
humiliates her, but note that the cruelties he visits upon her, he visits also upon himself. (No
spanking in this show; Kate is no spoiled child.) He starves himself along with Kate, until she utters
“thank you” for the first time in her life. When she finally relents and speaks the words, Kate and
Petruchio dine ravenously together while seated on the kitchen floor. The first glimmer of warmth glows
in Kate at that moment, along with the first awareness that this fellow might be up to something not
wholly malicious.
That glimmer grows, as Petruchio draws Kate into a series of nonsensical
pranks. Arnold’s wonderfully expressive face is never more wonderful than when it tells us Kate grasps
her screwball husband’s stratagems. Arnold delivers Shakespeare’s telling lines beautifully, but also
mutely shows the wheels turning within with this strong-willed woman’s agile mind. She realizes that
with a slight adjustment of attitude, she could become an insider in Petruchio’s endless private jokes.
They share disdain for genteel society, which is the butt of the jokes. That appeals to her.
All of this informs that final, telling scene. Petrucchio has given up his
cowboy outfit for an impeccable Edwardian tuxedo and graceful manners. The other women show up in
hooped, voluminous gowns that require corsets. Kate wears a glittering, draping dress that affords ease
and freedom of movement. Arnold’s Kate is neither shrew nor mouse. She’s the future, a Modern
Woman.