Posted by Bonnie on 23 March 2007 at
12:00
Shakespeare's comedy, which depicts the breaking of a young woman's will by her gold-digging new husband, has long divided audiences and critics alike. Is the play a reactionary relic from an unashamedly sexist age, or the depiction of two individuals with a playful approach to gender identity? This Nick Hutchison directed production appears to plump for the latter interpretation.
Propeller's recent staging of the play at the Old Vic side-stepped the problem by presenting the action as the wish-fulfilling dream of Christopher Sly — a drunken tinker of rather disreputable aspect. Christopher also features in this version of the work, but here the prologue takes a more familiar form: the unconscious Sly is discovered outside an alehouse by a mischievous lord who installs him in his castle and tells him he is the noble master, newly restored from a bout of madness. He is then presented with a play: The Taming of the Shrew.
Enjoyment of Hutchison's take on the story depends upon how persuaded one is by the "right on" rehabilitation of original work. This viewer remains unconvinced that the play is a coded satire on male chauvinism.
In keeping with the modern politics, the costumes are contemporary, and we are thrown into a world of chavs, trendy arty types and a dress designer with a strong resemblance to Karl Lagerfeld. However, such modishness only stresses how antiquated the plays' social mores have become.
Also, the topical nods this show makes towards the TV chefs and C-list celebrities of today suggests an affectionate acceptance of these latter-day types. Siobhan Hewlett's portrayal of Bianca as a potential Big Brother contestant seems particularly unfortunate in this respect.
That said, there are some fine performances to enjoy here. Rachael Stirling, an actress whose striking quality is a certain stillness, initially strikes one as a strange choice to play Kate. However, she manages to inject this difficult role with genuine pathos. Philip Voss exudes authority as Baptista Minola, and John Conroy's Gremio is the epitome of desiccated dignity. Meanwhile, Annie Gosney's design and Sarah Surridge's costumes set the scene convincingly in this most beautiful of venues.
A darker, more intelligent reading of this play would make for highly entertaining theatre.
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Posted by Bonnie on 23 March 2007 at
12:00
Wilton's Music Hall, the world's oldest grand music hall, plays host for the next month to the world's oldest battle. Its grimy walls — still needing money for refurbishment — will look down on a Shrew of sporadic merit that only just justifies itself by its strange close.
Shakespeare's tale of how Petruchio aggressively woos and reforms the waspish Katherine is often said to be unpleasantly outdated. That is baloney. No man or woman with a truthful eye could regard Petruchio's fight for control of his mate as wholly alien.
Still this play must convince as a love story to work, and that is a hard ask. As Petruchio and Kate, Oliver Chris (from Green Wing) and Rachael Stirling (from Tipping the Velvet) start dreadfully. As they first set eyes on each other, they attempt a "love at first sight" moment. The air between them crackles like sponge.
Director Nick Hutchison keeps the play's strange framing scene in which the drunken Christopher Sly, also played here by Oliver Chris, sits down to watch the play. The point when he switches characters, donning Petruchio's boots, is baffling, but Chris makes a charismatic go of the new role.
Swaggering, blond and towering above everyone, his Petruchio is as alpha as they come. So free of noticeable weakness is he, it's unthinkable that such an attractive and already wealthy young man would gamble his future on a tart-tongued heiress he hasn't seen.
Stirling at first seems out of her depth. Basing her performance on old-fashioned dramatic declamation, she sets her face in a tragic grimace and stomps, offering no clue as to what makes Katherine so catty.
Around them the laughs come slowly to the supporting cast who, with the exception of Adrian Schiller's amusingly low-key Grumio, eke out humour through obvious gesture and inappropriate campness.
The suitors of Kate's younger sister Bianca and even her father come across as noticeably fruity. It seems Charles Aitken's Lucentio, as the sole heterosexual in Padua, has an easy run at the girl.
In the second half, things improve. Chris recants his jockishness, revealing a yearning, sentimental side to Petruchio.
Stirling finds her rhythm as a surrendered wife: there's a playfulness in her protestations of obedience which suggests a state healthier than simple subjugation.
Finally, we begin to suspect affection exists between the two — but it's a sudden turnaround, and it's been a long plod to get there.
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Posted by Bonnie on 23 March 2007 at
12:00
An utterly bewitching Katherine with a clear, matchless vocal delivery, turns the tables on both Shakespeare and her would-be wooer. This is not the first time Petruchio has himself looked like the Shrew in urgent need of taming but Rachael Stirling is such a sweet and reasonable Kate that it makes Oliver Chris an oafish lout, kicking and caterwauling when he might be better employed kissing and cuddling this gorgeous creature.
Nick Hutchison's mission statement for his staging is to discover what passions lie beneath the characters' facades. For this Kate the moving motive is her jealous rivalry with Bianca, their father's favourite. And when these two are alone together we see how the older sister earned her reputation as Kate the Cursed, noisily squabbling as she drags Siobhan Hewlett by her blonde ponytail down a flight of steps.
The production reinstates the Christopher Sly framing story as Chris makes his first entrance from the auditorium, throwing ice cream tubs at a protesting usherette. And it underscores the play-within-a-play effect, presenting it as a Wilton's music hall evening, backed by a newly-painted front cloth celebrating the theatre's Victorian heyday. Although the action is set on three levels, plus a rear balcony, the blocking is mostly static, the emphasis instead on costume, attitude and the spoken word.
Among an excellent cast, Adrian Schiller plays droll servant Grumio while the three oldsters are outstanding, led by Philip Voss as a doting Baptista and the white-bearded Ciaran McIntyre and Leon Tanner as, respectively, Lucentio's false and true father.
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Posted by Bonnie on 21 March 2007 at
12:00
British actress RACHAEL STIRLING took on a mugger who snatched her mobile phone outside her London home — and won.
The 29-year-old daughter of DAME DIANA RIGG discovered a temper she never knew she had during the recent episode in West London.
She says, "He drove onto the pavement at about 10 at night. Before I knew it, he grabbed my phone and tried to speed off. Of course, the stupid a**e dropped the phone, so I picked it up and shouted abuse after him."
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Posted by Bonnie on 19 March 2007 at
12:00
The Taming of the Shrew has divided opinion for centuries: is it the story of a feisty young girl brought down to earth by a chauvinist bigot or the passionate love story of two outsiders? Nick Hutchison is renowned around the world for his productions which provide revealing insights into the world of Shakespeare's characters. This production aims to explore the role-playing, the games and the deceptions of this most theatrical of comedies and to discover what passions lie beneath the façades of its outlandish group of characters.
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