If you didn’t know that you wanted to see the rock opera version of The Taming of the Shrew, with the roles of Bianca and Katherine not played by Taylor Swift and Anne Hathaway, but by Zac Efron and Taylor Lautner, The Shakespeare Theater Company will make you realize that you do.
Director Ed Sylvanus Iskandar overlays his all-male performance with a soundtrack patchwork of pre-existing by Duncan Shiek songs. His proclaimed purpose: To bolster the lack of female monologues in the bard’s original. While it adds to the length of the play, it allows greater depth of all the characters, not just the women, giving voice to even minor players. It also gives the audience a respite from the struggle of following Shakespearean English.
The show is visually striking. Jason Sherwood has designed a sumptuous, revolving, gilded tower of a Paduan wealth, accentuated by Seth Reiser’s opulent lighting. Loren Shaw has clothed the gentlemen in garments ranging from a pink and frilly Bianca to vaguely Wagnerian-leather for Katherine, blithely mixing class and period in a mélange reflective of Iskander’s unmoored vision.
Iskander embraces an immersive style, mingling observer, performer, and character. Prior to the curtain’s rise, attendees stroll the Piazza d’Amore, an “artisan market” of handmade goods, clothing, food, and gifts, in a lobby designed to resemble a the heart of a village in Padua. Cast members and musicians rub elbows with well-heeled Washingtonian culture vultures. The mid-show “intermezzo” invites the audience to the wedding reception. Guests lounge on pillows surrounding a rotating stage while enjoying cake pops and Duncan Sheik covers.
The performances are strong, especially the “women.” Maulik Pancholy delivers an intense, melancholy Katherine, sobered from the outset by the confines of unshakeable femininity. Oliver Thornton’s Bianca is bright and genuine, while dodging insipidity. And Rick Hammerly burns as The Contessa, conveying graveside grief like a chasm. Ultimately, the female characters are portrayed so convincingly womanly that one forgets they’re played by men. The actors playing the men dispense a straighter delivery. Standout Tom Story plays wooer Hortensio with comic certainty, alternately besotted, thwarted, and hoodwinked, but always funny.
While the songs expand the internal dimensions of the characters, and Iskander has refined some plot points and dialogue, The Taming of the Shrewremains thorny in its misogyny. Every staging struggles with Kate’s final speech. Here, it is puzzlingly delivered without irony. While Iskander sought to bestir commentary with the gender-bending cast, the play ultimately sends a mixed message of sexism. Too many competing theatrical ideas render the politics of gender muddied, and lost in the plot. Shakespeare’s intent, and our feelings about finale-Katherine, remain elusive.
In the end, neither Iskander nor the cast can sanitize the uncomfortable misogyny of The Taming of the Shrew. There’s no shame in it. Directors have wrestled that nut and failed for years. But, The Shakepeare Theater can be applauded for originality, ambition and a fun, offering some finely acted Shakespeare and a full spectacle evening out in Padua.
Send in your RSVP and hie thee to the wedding.
The Taming of the Shrew is playing at The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Sydney Harman Hall (610 F Street, NW, Washington, DC 20004) throughJune 26, 2016. Running time: three hours with one thirty minute intermission. For information or tickets, call the box office at (202) 547-1122, or click here.
Photo credit Scott Suchman.
