Review: Kiss Me, Kate? This Taming Responds With "Shrew You!"

Shrew You!

Written by David Andrew Laws and William Shakespeare

Directed by Sophia Carlin

Presented by Hamlet Isn't Dead at UNDER St. Marks

94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC

August 11-18, 2023

Olivia Ridpath, Azumi Tsuzui, and Jillian Cicalese. Rehearsal photo. Courtesy of Emily Owens PR.
Among the dramatic works of William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice and The Taming of the Shrew share the distinction of being the most problematic to mount in a way that does not turn off contemporary audiences. But while it is possible to frame Shylock as a tragic figure within what is supposed to be a comedy, Shrew presents the arguably more difficult problem that Katherine embraces and even celebrates her own gaslighting oppression by the end of the play. Some productions try, with varied success, to soften the play's misogyny–by, for instance, playing Katherine's praise of women's subjugation as sarcasm–but it's a tough target to hit while preserving the original text. Shrew You!, part of FRIGID New York's The Little Shakespeare Festival, a showcase, themed this year around gender diversity, for plays that reimagine or respond to Shakespeare's work, circumvents this impasse with a condensed, self-aware version of Shakespeare's play. In so doing, Shrew You! bestows on audiences a hilarious, high-energy deconstruction that also has something to say about gender roles and reception.

One of the first 'fixes' that Shrew You! proposes is the elimination of Taming of the Shrew's induction, a partial frame that casts Shrew as a play within a play, put on for a drunk man named Christopher Sly. However, the play-within-a-play framing does not disappear but is instead displaced onto the actors playing themselves as members of Hamlet Isn't Dead (which they are) putting on the production that we are watching. Azumi (Azumi Tsuzui; she/her) is the most vocal about changing parts of Taming that she feels have not aged well (and perhaps the most optimistic that it can be 'fixed'), and the other cast members–Jillian Cicalese (she/her), Afton Paige Welch (she/her), and Olivia Ridpath (she/they)–agree to begin by giving the play a new prologue. There is some conflict over who gets to play Bianca, the beautiful (and tractable) daughter whose froward (i.e., not so tractable) sister, Katherine (Afton Paige Welch), must be espoused before Bianca's father (Olivia Ridpath) will put her on the marriage market, a condition that drives the plot of Shakespeare's play. Azumi prevails here too, leaving Jillian to play Petruchio, who weds and 'tames' Kate, with a delightful ambiguity regarding where Petruchio's narcissism ends and the spotlight-hungry persona of the actor playing him begins. As the group moves through the play, it is with a mix of original and new text and metacommentary, with Muppet-style puppets filling in at points when more than the four actors are needed (even then, some characters don't make the cut).

Speaking of these puppets, Azumi's Elmo-like Hortensio (another suitor) becomes even funnier when the other actors take the puppet away from her. In another memorable comedic moment, Ridpath as Bianca's suitor Lucentio delivers his lines in praise of her beauty as leeringly funny as part of her pitch-perfect rendition of him as a loutish bro, a type echoed to equally excellent effect in Cicalese's Petruchio. Cicalese as Petruchio and a fantastic Welch as Kate deliver some great back and forth, especially in a scene in which their verbal sparring is doubled by actual sparring with increasingly ridiculous pairings of weapons.

Even though, as an obvious sticking point, the wedding scene receives a skeptical summary and Azumi at one point says that she would rather just stop rather than play out the ending, there is also nuance here. Azumi, for instance, is not allowed to 'fix' Petruchio talking about owning Kate, and the performers discuss some positive ways to see Kate and how things turn out for her. Even Petruchio, who is undercut through, receives some recuperation. Will the actors be able to rescue the ending, and if so, how? For that, you'll need to see Shrew You! for yourself–and we highly recommend that you do, if for no other reason than the most thematically resonant use of dental floss that we've seen on a stage.

-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Immersive "American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams" Takes Audiences on a Marvelously Crafted Journey

Image
American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams Written by Tennessee Williams Directed by Jim Niesen Presented by the Irondale Ensemble Project at The Space at Irondale 85 South Oxford St., Brooklyn, NYC October 27-November 26, 2023 Shadenia Savid in Moony's Kids Don't Cry . Photo by Natasha Rotondaro In 1948, Tennessee Williams published American Blues , a collection of five one-act plays, and a remarkable new production of this collection by Brooklyn's Irondale shows that these works have lost none of their power to both entertain and challenge audiences in the intervening three-quarters of a century. Comprising plays written in the decade between 1936 and 1946 - Moony's Kids Don't Cry (1936); The Dark Room (1939); The Case of the Crushed Petunias (1941); The Long Stay Cut Short, or, the Unsatisfactory Supper (1946); and Ten Blocks on the Camino Real (1946) - American Blues represents the second part of Irondale's American Century, the first install
Read more

Review: "How To Eat an Orange" Cuts into the Life of an Argentine Artist and Activist

Image
How To Eat an Orange Written by Catherine Filloux Based on the writing of Claudia Bernardi Directed by Elena Araoz Presented by La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club at The Downstairs at La MaMa 66 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYC May 30-June 16, 2024 Paula Pizzi. Photo by Steven Pisano How To Eat an Orange , making its world premiere at La MaMa, does in fact include a real orange as a prop, and its multifarious symbolizations–evoking at different points cultural specificity, family history, matriarchal inheritance, and even a skull–are representative of the play's boundary-blurring, non-linear presentation of memory. The memories in question belong to visual artist, educator, and activist Claudia Bernardi , who lived through several years of her native Argentina's military junta, which held power from 1976 to 1983, before departing her country and eventually settling in the United States. How To Eat an Orange , from Catherine Filloux, a French Algerian American award-winning playwright,
Read more

Review: From Child Pose to Stand(ing) Up: "Yoga with Jillian" and "Penguin in Your Ear" at the Women in Theatre Festival

Image
Yoga with Jillian Written by Lia Romeo Directed by Andrew W. Smith Presented by Project Y Theatre and Richard Jordan Productions in association with The Pleasance June 2-17, 2023 Penguin in Your Ear Written and performed by Eliza Bent Directed by Jess Barbagallo June 10, 2023 Part of the Women in Theatre Festival , presented by Project Y Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres Michole Biancosino. Photo courtesy of Project Y Theatre This June, Project Y Theatre Company presents the eighth annual installment of its Women in Theatre Festival (WIT), which showcases new work by women and maintains "more than 50% female representation of all artists involved." This year, the festival includes a lobby installation project, titled In the Betweens , from scenic designer Chen-Wei Liao, through which audience members pass on their way into the theater proper. One first chooses first between "light" and "dark" rooms and then moves into "the gardens" before re
Read more