Shana Cooper’s shrewd direction of Taming of the Shrew at Cal Shakes brings inspiration, englightenment, over-the-top joy and abandon. The exuberant production brought summer to Bruns amphitheater at last night’s opening even with the weekend cold front putting a temporary damper on bikinidom with the sold-out house finding itself back in wool, fleece and blankets.
Get shrewd
Shana Cooper’s Shakespeare production makes everything work into a fabulous, kinetic frenzy of chemistry and energy—it all works, the cast, the set, the costumes, the music and especially the movement. Erika Chong Shuch designed the movement which brought the theater to life instantly with a big surprise musical opening, sound designed by Jake Rodriguez. Dave Maier choreographs the fights—mostly involving Erica Sullivan as Kate.
Dave also choreographed the blood and gore fest that Cal Shakes opened the season with, Titus Andronicus. Thanks for that.
If you loved Bill Irwin’s Scapin at ACT, you will love this.
Back to the Shrew, the wry, kitschy dancing and real vynal costumes would make Katy Perry proud. Cooper’s alternative, pop culture spin takes an unexpected vaudevillian turn with “who’s on first” antics between a trio in a sort of madcap hat trick. Generally though the tone in the opening almost sets the stage for a satire, it's so contemporary, so anything goes.
Shana’s particular gift seems to be casting this production to perfection, each and every cast member an absolute joy unto themselves so that you want to see the show again before you even leave the theater. For example I rode the shuttle back to BART after the buffet and one of the understudies, Nick, chatted with a group of young women who were planning to return at the end of the run.
Cutting to the chase
Shana expediently goes straight to the shrew and cuts out the whole play within a play context. Shakespeare’s original is about entertainment for a beggar named Christopher Sly. Sly is a drunk on whom a rich man is playing a trick and making him think he is nobility, with The Taming of the Shrew being offered to him along with elegance and comforts including a wife played demurely by one of the rich man’s male servants. So.
Are daughters who raise themselves destined to be Daddy's girls or tomboys?
What's not to like.
Shana’s take is about independent spirit that in this case comes from two unwed sisters being raised with one parent, meaning half the nurturance and constraints and arguably double the freedom. So. It’s more than lack of money that renders a woman unmarriable, or is it. Meanwhile education even for a vulgar tomboy is still seen as one route to a good marriage, but comically and rightly so in general. That’s a myth--Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses unless she has money. So first up, Bachelor Number One:
Danny Scheie fans got their fill as he played unrelenting Gremio and a tailor for all they were worth, trying to woo the fair Bee yank ah with everything he had, including a Brooklyn accent and perfect timing. Danny in a shiny silver suit and Hawaiian shirt as Gremio, actually sports a Ph.D from Cal. Call me?
Bachelor Number Two: Dan Clegg from this summer’s Verona Project as Tranio stands up well as he competes mano a mano for Bianca’s hand, with his English rock star attitude and bright red punk pants.
Slate Holmgren showed dominance and star presence and carried the production with Petrucio’s quest to out-shrew Katherine and win her heart, the shrew played by Erica Sullivan, in whom he met his match. Slate has this great scene involving Petrucio talking to himself, trying to rouse his courage to face the shrew after Hortensio gets luted by her. . . and he ultimately rises to the occasion.
To this end, Slate’s smooth shaved head and hairy chest lent themselves to Petruchio’s uncouth coolness and horrifying wedding ensemble, which seemed to involve a role of plastic wrap such as that which goes over a fresh tattoos. Katherine O’Neill designed the costumes but Slate has the manliness to wear them. Plus the man has the strength and stamina of an ox although Slate did seem to be losing his voice a tad toward the end—which actually could be incorporated to comic effect given the verbal abuse matched the phsyical. However there was a great moment with a pregnant pause where in the silence of the night the real-life crickets in the hills emphasized the point.
Bachelorette One: Erica Sullivan as his bride Kate keeps you guessing right to the end—all the while handling the physical comedy like a gymnast, riding out her role whether dancing with the male chorus, on Slate’s back or crawling over the dining table in starvation as Petrucio teaches her to be grateful for what he offers her, chocolate dipped strawberries. The night before he throws a Don Giovanniesque tirade at the dinner table, flinging the mutton like baseball bats in a base run.
Bachelor Number Three: Charmer Nicholas Pelczar does a great job of capping Kate and Petrucio’s final scene—the kiss me Kate scene on bended knee--with just the right tone. Nicholas has this easy going affable demeanor that’s disarming and comically understated, especially in his priestly robes as a Trojan horse of a Biancan suitor.
Bachelorette Two: Alexandra Henrikson, fresh from playing the feisty Miss Garnett in Candida, made every scene she was in pop with surprising spunk underneath her campy Barbie-esque exterior. Strategically, Bianca wore her tiara to advantage as she held her own against not just goofy suitors but the shrew, her younger and much smaller sister Kate. They play the tie-up scene deftly with the most wonderful inflections and physical manipulations as Kate interrogates captive Bianca about suitors.
Liam Vincent’s lounge lizard gigolo costumes were cartoonesque as he played Hortensio, yet another Biancan suitor.
Theo Black, tall and lanky with a BA from UC Berkeley, played the hapless and orderly Biondello with a wonderful sense of alarm as the world around him, in courtship, goes awry and offends his sensibilities.
The men, including Rod Gnapp, Dan Hiatt and Joan Mankin, all clean up well and look dazzling in their tuxedos while the women remain more individualistic, whether in pants, a debutante white wedding dress or a wealthy widow cougar animal print.
The play does not necessarily define what it would take to make a woman who grows up with only one parent, free-ranging, ever feel subordinate or even want to submit. Shakespeare does write that men going off in their ships while women remain warm and safe in their beds have something to do with acquiescence, if not new found maturity and respect and partnership. It is fascinating to see how even at the end of the 1500s, Shakespeare talks of women wanting equality and complaining even if they could not write but only read.
What women want
What we perpetual loners want, what we shrewd women want, it seems, are men with cajones, men who try. We do not need pretty boys or wealth so much as we need honest men, men with confidence, men who make us feel like women, protected and provided for. So I don’t think this is such a misogynistic play after all as the message is in the telling, and it says with love, man up.
Tickets for The Taming of the Shrew range from $35 to $66 with discounts available, plus special events such as a ladies night. Shrew runs through October 16.
Grounds open two hours prior to showtime for picnicking.
Café open with hot entrees like salmon, chili or panini, desserts, wine and beer.
For more information, www.CalShakes.org.
For more by this writer, check out the opera blog at http://www.examiner.com/opera-in-san-francisco
or Renee Fleming in title role of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia at SF Opera.
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