The Taming of the Shrew

Wadham College Gardens to August 4th

Bold & Saucy are back again, in the lovely Wadham College gardens (watch out for the exotic aquilegias) for The Taming of the Shrew, one of Shakespeare's difficult comedies. The plot (roughly, guy meets girl, guy tortures girl, girl admits guy is superior, they all live happily ever after) is hard on a modern audience, and most treatments have the comedy edging uneasily into tragedy.

Perhaps this is because of the very ordinariness of the story; while the staples of Shakespearean tragedy are rather remote to the modern mind, the plight of the shrewish Kate touches anyone who has ever had to compromise for an unreasonable lover; and David Hollet's Petruchio is unreasonableness personified. Elegantly dressed (the style is 20's gangster/Italinate fascista, all fetishwear and slick pinstripes), opinionated, and nastily likeable, he blasts onto the scene without consideration or compromise, running the world as a joke at the other guy's expense, with the money and influence to back it up.

By comparison, Georgina Robert's be-suited Catherine is trapped and mocked, an isolated daughter brandishing her wit and intelligence against the world; which is not to say she is pathetic, though some of her scenes are heart-rending. Excellent support comes from a sublimely bitchy Bianca (Charlotte Windmill) and some extremely sleazy suitors, while in the servant roles Kate Russell-Smith is a super-sneaky gender-bending Tranio, and John Albasiny, as Grumio, does much to explain and accommodate Petruchio's difficult behaviour.

If the performance occasionally comes across as brutal, that's because partly that's the point of the story. While the uncompromising representation of women as property to be brokered, animals to be broken, leaves you uneasy, the plot isn't significantly different to that of other romantic comedies, and the happy ending as deeply felt and satisfyingly delightful. Catch them between rainstorms if you can.

Jeremy Dennis 10/7/01