PLAINFIELD – The Green Mountain Shakespeare Festival is currently presenting a most unconventional version of William Shakespeare’s comedy, The Taming of the Shrew in the Haybarn Theatre on the former Goddard College campus, in Plainfield, now called the Creative Campus at Goddard.
It is an imaginative production, directed by Virginia Monte, with a high energy cast of mostly young actors and actresses. The play was written early in Shakespeare’s career, somewhere between 1592 and 1595, and has kept its popularity ever since, with more recent adaptations such as Cole Porter’s Broadway musical, Kiss Me Kate.
This performance combines a number of strands of other theatrical influences, such as the Italian Commedia dell’arte, clowning from circus traditions, Vaudeville slapstick and possibly event stunts from the silent film comedies of the 1920s. The result of this mashup is a kind of nonstop rambunctious physicality which is very entertaining. But it does consciously ignore the elements that players are usually warned to avoid in theatre, which are overacting and straining for effect, as some need to surrender to exaggeration and go with the flow of a cast that is obviously having a lot of fun.
The plot features two young gentlemen, Lucentio from Pisa and Petruchio from Verona, who have come to Padua and become suitors to the wealthy Bianca and Kate, respectively, daughters of the wealthy Baptista Minola family. The conundrum is that someone must marry Kate, who is a dreadful shrew, before her younger and more pleasant sister Bianca can be wed. There is no explanation given as to why Kate is so extremely difficult, although it is observable that her siblings often turn out to have quite different personalities even though they are raised in a nominally identical environment. Without going into all the machinations of the drama, it becomes Petruchio’s job description to “tame” Kate and make her into a compliant wife, which he succeeds in doing as a kind of witty trickster figure, thus freeing Lucentio to marry Bianca for a happy ending.
As the comedy commences. one is struck by the colorfully outlandish costumes, some like the patchwork patterns of Commedia dell’arte characters; others just over the top with baroque decorations. There is periodic dancing and interpolation of recorded songs more or less connected to the action. Above all there is a lot of silliness. With some regularity there are clearly identifiable passages of Shakespeare’s eloquence, his unmistakable cadence and poetic evocations of nature. To sum it up, the momentum is fast forward so there is never a dull moment, but sometimes it raises issues of the need for a rhythm in comic timing and whether knock-about-humans can be too repetitive. The final question is, do all these liberties make Shakespeare more accessible to wider audiences?
The whole cast is to be commended for really getting into their roles with admirable enthusiasm. Catherine Grace was Kate, Caleb Roman was Petruchio and Stephanie Seng was his servant Grumio, Charlotte Thornley was Bianca, Calvin Lane was Lucentio, and Tove Wood was his servant Tranio, Mariana Considine was the mother in the Baptista Minola family, Patrick Cope was suitor Hortensio as well as the father of Lucentio, Vicentio, Caira Adams was another suitor, Gremio, and Wesley Grove was the servant Biodello.
Many people were involved in all the technical aspects of this production, too numerous to list, but Tom Blachly should be mentioned as the original inspiration for the Green Mountain Shakespeare Festival. The next performances will be August 28, 29 and 30 at 7 p.m., for more information go to theatreengine.com
David K. Rodgers
David K. Rodgers is a writer, mason and card carrying dilettante, who dabbles and babbles in art. He has lived in East Craftsbury for the past 40 years.
