THE TAMING OF THE SHREW by William Shakespeare (Stratford). Festival Theatre, Stratford. Runs in rep to November 1. $39.40-$94.47. 1-800-567-1600. Rating: NNN Rating: NNN
for all its comedy, the taming of The Shrew is a tricky play to pull off. Katherina’s final speech of deference to her husband can easily seem brutal and misogynistic. Director Miles Potter tries a new tack, translating the action to frontier territory – Padua City, and on Petruchio’s ranch – and giving it a spaghetti western feel. Because he’s consistent with the approach, the wildness of the setting gives licence to the gun-toting boisterousness of the humour and an amusing edge even to Kate’s metamorphosis.
With an actor as skilled as Seana McKenna , of course, there’s even more going on. Her Katherina dreams of love before the first words are spoken onstage, so her finding a mate in Petruchio ( Graham Abbey , with echoes of a serape-clad, cigar-smoking Clint Eastwood) isn’t too surprising.
Yet despite all the preparation for the growing tenderness and understanding between Kate and Petruchio, McKenna doesn’t pull off Kate’s final speech it can’t work these days without at least a hint of irony in it.
Most of the time, though, the show is delightfully, if broadly, entertaining, with fine comic work by Jonathan Goad as Petruchio’s servant Tranio (here a Mexican peon who’s sometimes smarter than his master), Deborah Hay as Kate’s squeaky-voiced sister Bianca and Donald Carrier and Brad Rudy as Bianca’s outwitted suitors.
