entertaining comedy of misdemeanors and intentions is off and running from the moment you sit down.
Kevin Stidham as Lucentio and Matt McGloin as Tranio
In the Italian city of Padua, a rich young man named Lucentio, (perfectly cast in Kevin Stidham), arrives with his servants, Tranio, (near–genius comic timing by Matthew McGloin) and Biondello, (a winning performance by Connor Hogan), to attend the local university. Lucentio is excited to begin his studies, but his priorities change when he sees Bianca, a beautiful, mild young woman (charmingly played by Amaree Cluff), with whom Lucentio instantly falls in love.
There are two problems: first, Bianca already has two suitors, Gremio and Hortensio; second, Bianca's father, a wealthy man named Baptista Minola, has declared that no one may court Bianca until first her older sister, the vicious, ill-tempered Katharina gets married. Lucentio
decides to overcome this problem by disguising himself as Bianca's Latin tutor to gain an excuse to be in her company. Hortensio disguises himself as her music teacher for the same reason. While Lucentio pretends to be Bianca's tutor, Tranio dresses up as Lucentio and begins to confer
with Baptista about the possibility of marrying his daughter.
The “Katharina problem” is solved for Bianca's suitors when Hortensio's friend Petruchio, (expertly portrayed by Jens Rasmussen), a brash young man from Verona, arrives in Padua with the intention of marrying a rich woman. He does not care what she is like as long as she will bring him a fortune. He agrees to marry Katharina sight unseen. Let the games begin.
Now we are into the next round of mayhem, which ceases only with the final curtain call bows.
This is a fast-paced, warmly funny, deftly acted and directed company of performers interpret the Bard with glee and endless humor. Director James Alexander Bond has brought much intelligence to the text without updating, altering or resetting the play. No need to reinvent the
wheel. (This too often is the case with productions of Shakespeare and sometimes not successful.)
Bond has brought out many honed, well-defined performances from his cast.
(Sorry, I can’t write about each one of them but my compliments to all and to the departments.)
With lightning agility, the actors execute cleverly staged action sequences designed by David Doersch. Their comic vaudevillian feats are performed with razor-sharp precision. Always in character, the actors leap, cavort and hurtle their bodies and things toward one another with
complete abandon: a theatrical cousin to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” without wires.
Though “Shrew” is oftentimes criticized for its misogynistic, anti-feminist views, the resolution at the end found in Katharina’s long final speech, (well-delivered by Catherine Gowl), shows us that the tamer can be tamed because, as with everything, politics underlie all: that winning doesn’t always mean you have laid down the highest hand. Rather, if you listen well to Shakespeare’s text and glean from it his pearls of wisdom on the ways of the world, you may learn this: It’s how you use the cards in all the hands you are dealt that brings meaning and success to your life.
Whatever critics and academics argue from both sides of the aisle over what Shakespeare was saying about women and gender divide, in the end, Bond gives us a satisfying conclusion in that both Petruchio and Katharina consider themselves equal to one another. That’s evolution.
by Victoria Racimo for the Williamsburg Yorktown Daily
