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| Michael Wager, Joan Bassie, and company. |
1.
THE TAMING OF THE
SHREW [Dramatic Revival] A: William Shakespeare; D: Gene Feist and Gui
Andrisano; S: Holmes Easley; C: Mimi Maxmen; L: Robert Murphy; M: Philip
Campanella; P: Roundabout Theatre Company; T: Roundabout Theatre (OB);
1/30/71-2/20/72 (29)
Michael Wager’s performance as Petruchio was one of the few
delights of what Edith Oliver deemed a “brainless” revival, saying that it “might
just as well [have been] non-verbal for all the values that the players get
from Shakespeare’s words.” This production “just will not do,” carped
Clive Barnes, who, like many others, felt the attempt to present this heavily
cut Shrew in commedia dell’arte style—including
Callot-like masks—worked “against the best interests of the play.” Even Petruchio
and Kate (Joan Bassie) were sometimes masked, albeit with dominos. About the most
positive thing anyone had to say came from Dick Brukenfeld: “Altogether, well
done.”
Judith Sullivan was Bianca, Philip Campanella was Hortensio,
Fred Stuthman was Gremio, David Hendricks was Lucentio, Gui Andrisano was
Grumio, and so forth.
2.
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| Jane Lapotaire, Jim Dale. |
D: Frank Dunlop; DS:
Carl Toms; L: David Watson; M: Michael Lankester; P: Brooklyn Academy of Music
i/a/w Brooklyn College in the Young Vic Production; T: Brooklyn Academy of
Music (OB); 3/6/74-3/31/74 (12)
Britain’s popular Young Vic repertory company,
then only four-years-old, offered a season of three plays at BAM, including
this rambunctious Shrew with the
versatile Jim Dale as Petruchio and Jane Lapotaire as Kate. As typical of
their work, irreverence marked what Clive Barnes dubbed this “perfectly untamed”
interpretation by clever director Frank Dunlop. Carl Toms’s set, consisting essentially
of a steep, red flight of stairs, some platforming, and a 75-seat bleacher
section, was an economical, yet effective base for this buoyant show.
Many liberties were
taken to squeeze the juice of humor from the characters and action. The critics
loved the results since they agreed that of all the Bard’s comedies, this was
one that surely allowed for farcical high jinx.
The tone was set at
the beginning when one of the onstage spectators, a drunken, jeans-wearing,
Greenwich Village hippie barged into the play as the tinker Christopher Sly.
Well done by young Richard Gere, the only American in the cast, Sly got the show off to a hilarious start. From there on it was a fast-paced,
free-for-all of comic invention, with many off-color notes, asides, pratfalls,
and anachronistic comments, including references to other Shakespeare plays.
There were even wisecracks citing Glenda Jackson and Shea Stadium. The “gags
and emendations, . . . wheezes and japes, are all perfectly cast in the
Shakespearean mold,” observed Barnes.
Given the play’s
contentious position today regarding its perceived misogyny, a position that
has seen it either get fewer revivals or have it staged so that the shrewish
Kate is somehow untamed, it’s interesting to see that, to Barnes, the
interpretation had a definitely male-chauvinist slant: “this shrew is tamed,
and tamed, and tamed.” But Martin Gottfried insisted it was a match of equals,
with the lovers’ relationship ending with them as “a couple.” Instead of being
chauvinistic, it was, he opined, “a post-women’s lib” approach.
Jim Dale’s Petruchio
was not the conventional swaggerer, but a gentler, more human and appealing
character. He received excellent notices for playing down the bravura and
playing up the sincerity. “Mr. Dale is simply the firm-minded boy
who lives next door and wants his dinner on the table on time,” wrote Barnes.
Jane Lapotaire played the shrew as “winsome and sympathetic,” said Gottfried.
Her truthful behavior made the struggle with Petruchio more believable and
appealing than typical for this play.
Cast members included Ian Charleson as Lucentio, Ian Trigger
as Gremio, Gavin Reed as Hortensio, Denise Coffey as Bianca, and so forth.
Next up: Tarot
