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Taming A Shrew
May. 17th, 2010 11:19 amWilliam Shakespeare was a very good playwright. He was also a man of his time, or at least knew what the men of his time were willing to pay to see. Men of Shakespeare's time thought women were basically property and didn't like Jews at all. This gives us the plays The Merchant of Venice and the play I saw Friday night, The Taming of The Shrew.
Now, The Merchant of Venice isn't actually about Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, but because of him it's very difficult for modern companies to produce the play. Since The Taming of the Shrew is in fact about subduing a fiery woman, in part by physical force, that play becomes even more hard to produce for a modern audience.
So hard, in fact, that the Chicago Shakespeare Theater commissioned Neil LaBute to write an "induction" making their production of Shrew a play-within-a-play. As the audience walks into the theater, we see a stagehand vacuuming the set, and another stage hand working on lighting with somebody up in the catwalk. We then discover that the woman playing Kate is in a relationship with the female "director" of the show. Alas, "Kate" also tends to cheat on the director, in this case with the actress playing Bianca.
The part before the intermission is a technical rehearsal, which breaks for lunch and an argument between "Kate" and the "director." Several of the other actors have unexpected romantic and personal traits greatly at odds with their characters. After the intermission, we're now in a dress rehearsal with an invited audience, where the action resumes. I can't give away the ending, but it's a surprise.
It's also not what Shakespeare wrote, and highlights again that Shakespeare was a man of his time.
Now, The Merchant of Venice isn't actually about Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, but because of him it's very difficult for modern companies to produce the play. Since The Taming of the Shrew is in fact about subduing a fiery woman, in part by physical force, that play becomes even more hard to produce for a modern audience.
So hard, in fact, that the Chicago Shakespeare Theater commissioned Neil LaBute to write an "induction" making their production of Shrew a play-within-a-play. As the audience walks into the theater, we see a stagehand vacuuming the set, and another stage hand working on lighting with somebody up in the catwalk. We then discover that the woman playing Kate is in a relationship with the female "director" of the show. Alas, "Kate" also tends to cheat on the director, in this case with the actress playing Bianca.
The part before the intermission is a technical rehearsal, which breaks for lunch and an argument between "Kate" and the "director." Several of the other actors have unexpected romantic and personal traits greatly at odds with their characters. After the intermission, we're now in a dress rehearsal with an invited audience, where the action resumes. I can't give away the ending, but it's a surprise.
It's also not what Shakespeare wrote, and highlights again that Shakespeare was a man of his time.
