MACBETH and THE TAMING OF THE SHREW by William Shakespeare, directed by Ker Wells (Macbeth) and Ted Witzel (Shrew), with Philippa Domville, Hugh Thompson, Sophie Goulet and Kevin MacDonald. Presented by Canadian Stage and the York University department of theatre at the High Park Amphitheatre (1873 Bloor West). In rep to September 1, Tuesday-Sunday 8 pm. Macbeth now in previews, opens Wednesday (July 3) Shrew begins previews July 6, opens July 16. Pwyc ($20 sugg). canadianstage.com.
This summer, Shakespeare in High Park doubles its quotient of the Bard.
Instead of one, Canadian Stage offers two servings of Shakespeare, with an early comedy, The Taming Of The Shrew, and a late tragedy, Macbeth, running in rep.
Presented in collaboration with York University’s theatre department, they’re helmed by two grads of the school’s MFA program, Ted Witzel (Shrew) and Ker Wells (Macbeth).
The shows are effectively their graduate theses in the two-year program run in collaboration with Canadian Stage, and each director has a personal reason for his choice of script.
“I like the weird, obscure plays,” admits Witzel, whose company the red light district premiered in 2007 with Titus Andronicus.
“I chose Shrew because it’s the most offensive of Shakespeare’s comedies, one that needs a director to contextualize the central action, in which the title character, Katherina, is gradually controlled by her husband, Petruchio.
“In Elizabethan days, the audience would be happy to see that wild woman dominated – it was a victory,” he says. “Today, of course, that control mortifies audiences, so I’m looking at the play in terms of contemporary gender politics, which present a challenge to women. There are still economic and gender divisions, so I’ve set the show in a bright, artificial world in which patriarchy and capitalism are the driving forces.”
Wells, a founding member of theatre companies Primus and Number Eleven, chose Macbeth for two reasons.
“With its witches and ghosts, it appeals to the child in us, but I felt another draw to the theme of power and ambition. I’m in my mid-40s, and there’s a resonance in looking at a text that confronts my relationship to my own ambition.
“Coming from the indie theatre community, I have a sense of being an outsider,” he explains. “In my reading of the play, Macbeth is middle-aged, dealing with the fact that he has no offspring in a society that’s founded on ideas of succession and lineage. He confronts pairs of fathers and sons throughout the play, and I started to think about the character not in terms of how he could do such bloody things, but rather under what circumstances I might be capable of doing them.”
It’s intriguing to compare the central couples in Shrew and Macbeth. The first pair move toward a sharing of some sort, while the latter’s relationship dissolves.
“There are commentators who see Kate and Petruchio turning into a Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as they grow older,” says Witzel. “Their opposite trajectories are fascinating to watch on the same stage, which is what our audiences can see on alternate nights.”
Those switches back and forth between two radically different scripts have been a learning process for the directors and their dozen performers.
“Unless they’ve worked in repertory at Stratford, Shaw or Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach, most actors haven’t had to compartmentalize what they’re doing,” continues Witzel. “We’ve had a short, breakneck rehearsal process, one none of us is used to, and it’s tricky to switch gears, especially given the contrasting tones of the plays.”
“We each had 12 days in the rehearsal hall before moving to the park, but of course the work stretched out over twice that time for the actors,” adds Wells. “It was a reminder to me about how much of an actor’s work is done outside of rehearsals, and the dual schedule doesn’t allow them time to digest what happens in any one rehearsal.
“It’s a real challenge for them to alternate between shows with totally different styles.”
Additional Interview Clips
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