THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. To 17 February.

London

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
by William Shakespeare.

Old Vic Theatre In rep to 17 Feb 2007.
24-26; 29-30 Jan, 3; 7-9; 12-13 Feb 7.30pm Mat 20, 27, 31 Jan, 10, 14, 17 Feb 2.30pm.
BSL Signed 12 Feb.
Runs 2hr 50min One interval.

TICKETS: 0870 060 6628 (£2.50 transaction fee).
www.oldvictheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 17 January.

Gender-bending to some end.
Propeller, founded a decade ago by director Edward Hall, is a Shakespearean ensemble which avoid any identifiable style, apart from noticeably playing with all-male casts. Both Shrew and its companion Twelfth Night have 3 female roles; any actor playing a female in one production plays a male role in the other.

So, as with the situation where an actor’s ethnicity clearly differs from what might be expected in the character: do you ignore the contrast, or use it as a factor in understanding the play? Unlike Propeller’s Twelfth Night, where the concept never engages with the play’s masculine-feminine complexities, there is some point in the male casting here. It distances the violence that emerges from doubling drunken Christopher Sly, from the play’s (often-omitted) Induction, with Petruchio who, in more than one sense, beats Katherine at her own game.

Dugald Bruce-Lockhart’s Sly here interrupts a wedding, and it’s as revenge for this he’s persuaded, in his drunken stupor, that he’s a lord. Then he’s handed a script and asked to play Petruchio. Such a device usually seems awkward, but works neatly here as Sly moves from reading the lines without any understanding to picking up the relevance of Petruchio’s words to his own experience. From then on, he’s away, Sly’s own roughness infiltrating Petruchio’s.

Simon Scardifield’s Katherine is a fiery blonde, the factor of the male actor also filtering into the battle between the enemies who become lovers. By contrast Jon Trenchard’s Bianca shows how cross-casting can reduce a character to stereotype; Trenchard shows Bianca’s spoiled pettishness and get-my-own-way smiles at appropriate times, but they inevitably come over as external imitations.

Hall’s other main trick is to have the 3 women onstage at the end when Shakespeare clearly places them in an adjoining room. The purpose is to see which new wife will come when her husband sends for her, and while their presence when the wager’s made between the trio of husbands emphasises they are independent beings, the men talk as if they’re not there, a new staging convention which it’s rather late to be introducing at this final stage.

Christopher Sly/Petruchio: Dugald Bruce-Lockhart.
Lucentio: Tam Williams.
Tranio: Tony Bell.
Biondello: Alasdair Craig.
Baptista: Bob Barrett.
Katherine: Simon Scardifield.
Bianca: Jon Trenchard.
Gremio/Vincentio: Chris Myles.
Hortensio: Jack Tarlton.
Grumio/Pedant: Jason Baughan.
Curtis: Joe Flynn.
Tailor/Widow: Dominic Tighe.

Director: Edward Hall.
Designer: Michael Pavelka.
Lighting: Mark Howland, Ben Ormerod.
Music: Propeller.
Associate director: Tom Daley.

2007-01-25 12:26:24