'The Taming of the Shrew' at the Lantern (first review)

On the most superficial level, there are still places in which 16th-century gender roles prevail, and women who don’t follow them are dying. However, Shakespeare’s exploration does more than chronicle the oppression of women: Over the course of five acts, he subtly subverts the mores of his age.

In the energized production by the Lantern Theater Company, the period is updated to the early 20th century and the tango is used as a metaphor for choreographing relationships through the steps of attraction, deception, manipulation, and, for Petruchio (J Hernandez) and Katherine (Joanna Liao), aggression. We meet Petruchio as a dowry-chasing buffoon whose braggadocio gets the better of him when he promises to marry and tame Kate, a scowling misfit who has so far scared off all swains.

Shakespeare’s wink

Their combative courtship is set up as a play within a play. Hernandez first staggers into view as Christopher Sly, a drowsy drunkard who dreams the events that follow, in an often-omitted prologue. Lantern Artistic Director Charles McMahon, who directed the production, writes in the program that the play-within-a-play conceit allowed Shakespeare to maintain “ironic distance,” to present events through Sly’s addled state.

When Hernandez reappears as Petruchio, he is sober but still as farcical as his inebriated alter ego, punctuating his words with comical hip swivels. All cast members take on multiple roles with gleeful vigor, leaving the audience breathless as they speedily deliver tongue-twisting lines and depart, returning seconds later in new guises.

Painful honesty

Though the overall mood is comic and Kate and Petruchio begin as caricatures, their characters deepen as events unfold. They gradually form a bond that is both stronger and more honest than Taming’s more traditional couples. There is more candor between Petruchio and Kate than her sweet, compliant sister Bianca (K.O. DelMarcelle) shares with her beloved, masquerading Lucentio (Ahren Potratz).

Even sleepless and starving, Kate and Petruchio are intrigued with each other: She has never had so determined a suitor, and he has never had to work so hard to win a prize. As they battle, anger and opposition evolve into grudging respect, sympathy, and love as they form an alliance against all comers, presenting themselves as society dictates. However conventional the pairing might appear, the knowing glances Kate and Petruchio share tell us that theirs is a marriage of equals.

As Kate, Liao’s tone and gestures bespeak a woman every bit as intelligent and determined as Petruchio, though at a social disadvantage. When the words on the page are compliant, her wry tone undercuts them, with one notable exception: her last soliloquy, delivered with the utter sincerity of a woman in love:

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper

Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,

And for thy maintenance commits his body

To painful labor both by sea and land,

To watch the night in storms, the day in cold

Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;

And craves no other tribute at thy hands

But love, fair looks and true obedience;

Too little payment for so great a debt.…

Far from being a misogynistic relic, Taming reveals the compromises necessary on both sides of successful relationships, as two negotiate complementary roles to form something together that is better than what either could achieve alone. If it is to be more than an economic arrangement or a social mask, marriage requires partners willing to surrender and sacrifice, to go along to get along, to tame and acquiesce to being tamed. ’Twas ever thus.

For Naomi Orwin's review, click here.