The Taming of the Shrew (Film review)

Frances, our president, went to see the film of the Globe's The Taming of the Shrew last Sunday. Here is her take on the production.

I went with a friend to see The Taming of the Shrew. She had not seen a performance before, but had read the script, and expressed alarm at its lack of political correctness.

This Globe production was wonderfully funny, with abundant physical and verbal comedy in the first half, but the laughs faded somewhat after the interval as Kate’s torture proceeded, though Grumio still provided some delightful humour with his dead-pan delivery.

By the end, of course, the mood was considerably lightened with an amusing turn of the tables as Bianca and the widow showed their true natures to their new husbands, contrasting with the sweet harmony exhibited by Kate and Petruchio.

Afterwards my friend and I compared notes. Even while admitting great admiration for the acting and staging of the whole play, she remained concerned that Kate had been browbeaten into subjugation and was not happy. I saw it rather differently. For me, Kate had won. The balance of power began to shift after the tailor’s visit, and Kate’s strategy seemed clear on the road back to Padua. She agreed calmly to Petruchio’s absurd quibble about the sun and moon, and when Vincentio appeared she had obviously decided to press Petruchio’s tricks to their ridiculous extremes, triumphantly obliging him to rescue her from the silly situation he had created. Petruchio’s behaviour from then on became steadily more reasonable and they created a charming sense of a growing and warm mutual affection.

 In the final scene we have Kate’s problematic description of the conduct proper to a wife. Taken at face value, it’s enough to make any self-respecting woman of the 21st century see red, and my friend was righteously indignant. However, I felt that Kate gave the words a subtle but definite touch of irony, enough to suggest that this was an effective recipe for matrimonial comfort without implying total surrender of the woman’s autonomy. At the end, as she knelt submissively, Petruchio knelt too, and the play concluded with their joyful embrace and happy exit. This suggested to me that they were set on a path of mutual respect and equality, and it was very clear that the future of the other couples would not be nearly so rosy.

By starting the play with the full Induction scene, the director found another way to take the sting out of the gender war. The whole story became a play (within the play) to entertain the drunken Christopher Sly, so setting the action at one remove further from reality. In addition the same actor played both Sly and Petruchio, giving the story a sense of its being merely Sly’s imaginings.

By chance I heard a news item after returning home, which made me think again about Kate’s (and Bianca’s) situation at the beginning of the play. A very young girl from the Yemen had put out a plea, via YouTube I think, for her rights to her own childhood, and an education, and the right not to be married to a man chosen by her elders before she was even in her teens. She was eloquent and brave, and for me provided an interesting counterpoint to the situation depicted in the play, which must have been taken for granted by audiences for most of the play’s life.

Director:	Joe Murphy
Running time:	180 mins
Stars:	Remy Beasley, Becci Gemmell, Kathryn Hunt, Kate Lamb, Olivia Morgan, Joy Richardson, Nicola Sangster, Leah Whitaker

A guest post from the Ashland Festival

We have a guest blogger: Jeff Burdick, a fellow Shakespeare-lover from California. Jeff loves to go to the famous Ashland Festival. Here is his take on the Shakespeare plays he saw this season. (He saw four other plays as well, so it must have been a seriously busy six-days!) I have left Jeff’s American spelling intact. And, I should add, I am green with envy. Just imagine living close enough to visit Ashford, Oregon, with Shakespeare playing ten months of the year!

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival

The Festival has been going on for many years and long ago branched beyond Shakespeare, though his plays remain the heart of the season, which stretches through 10 months of the year. The height of the season, when most of the plays are playing in cycles, is summer. For about three weeks during the summer, they are producing nine or ten of their annual offerings at the same time. That’s when I go: I watched eight plays in six days.

The festival takes places in a small town of about 20,000 people (many of them stretched out over the rural hills and valleys of the Rogue section of Oregon) so they depend on pilgrims from all over the country to fill the seats. They have three theaters: The Thomas, which is a fairly new black-box theater, the Bowman, which seats 600+ in a traditional proscenium theater, and the Elizabethan, which is patterned on an original Elizabethan stage, including being open to the elements (Rain is common during the summer in Ashland, so patrons come ready to huddle under hoods and plastic blankets).

The actors are professional equity union members, though they are augmented with volunteer community members for 'spear carriers'. It is not at all uncommon to have actors who have appeared on Broadway in the plays. In short, this is not amateur work.

The town of Ashland is exactly what one would hope for: a small town with art galleries, book stores, and walkable streets. Actors and directors are spotted on the sidewalks eating ice cream cones and drinking coffee. It is a friendly place, and it boasts one of the prettiest downtown parks I’ve seen (about 90 acres or 46.5 hectares).

You can visit http://www.osfashland.org for more information about the festival. 

Cymbeline

I've read it on a few occasions with very little comprehension. It is a weird mess on the page: beheadings and morally questionable decisions (would young Posthumous really wager his wife's virginity?), betrayals, four different nationalities, gods who seem to be quite active (and perhaps ineffective?), the usual boy actor (in this case played by a girl) impersonating a girl impersonating a boy, the lost heirs to the throne, the rash 'father' who is really a loyal subject of the real father, the King, and it goes on and on. 

This weird mess became untangled on stage (my first production). The moral problems do not evaporate – in fact, they appear more rash, more unpredictable, more unreasonable than they do on stage. But the cohesiveness of the story was much more obvious.

Posthumous’s parents were introduced through songs, sort of ghostly presences that helped tell the story.

Daniel Molena, the Romeo of last year, did not quite fit his role as Posthumous, partly because he is slight and nearly everyone (outside of Imogen) was very large.  He looked like a boy (as she looked like a girl) in a world where he must be a man. The Imogen was spectacular both as a heroine and as a comic when needed. It is, after all, a comedy along with all else it is. 

What struck me about this play is something I've thought about several times regarding Shakespeare's late plays. The moral ambiguities get worse and the events become quite unhinged in several cases (Tempest for another example). Rash behaviors are commonplace. Cruelty is too often a momentary reaction that reveals frustration rather than a cruel nature (one cannot really call Posthumous cruel, though he strikes out at the slightest provocation). But what saves the plays from this period are two things: (1) the disclosure of who and what things and people really are: we discover that the boy is a girl, that the wild Welshmen are the heirs, that the glozing Italian is petty trickster; and (2) forgiveness takes the place of grace. Or forgiveness is grace. Forgiveness is seen as the greatest force in the world, even beyond love and divine intervention. Here, when Posthumous allows the trickster to live (when he has no reason to do it), he gains strength and says that he does gain strength. Forgiveness, even when not required or earned, is the grace that puts things right and allows the future to happen.

Jack Willis as King Lear

King Lear

It is the next day noon, and I am still trying to decide whether I liked the production last night. The first thing is that modern dress hurts Lear in a way that it doesn't hurt most of the other plays. We must believe that Lear is god-like, that he is divinely ordained to his position, that he is powerful in politics and in his person. But when he walks in and is wearing a business suit and when his changes are into fishing gear and then rags, we don't see the King that we must see in order for this play to work. So, one strike against.

The characters, especially the fool, the bastard, Cordelia, Kent and Gloucester were remarkably done. Edgar was uneven, but very good. He was hampered, I think, by being nearly naked through much of the play as Tom. It wasn't that he was self-conscious – he wasn't – but that the audience – or at least I – was trying not to notice what was right in front of us. The fool, an Asian kid with duct tape to fix everything was too clingy (bad direction) but utterly winning – poking holes in the king's folly with great enthusiasm and real concern.

Why didn't Shakespeare give Cordelia a lot more to do?? She is as strong as a punk chick in the first scene, returns as a strong warrior at the end – but we needed so much more of her. Don't I remember that she had a scene (s?) in France while she reacts to news? Must look that up.

[Nope: I guess I just hoped that S had written a scene in France for Cordelia. A creative memory isn’t the best attribute to have. The play would have been better if S had simply listened to me.]

Lear is being played by two actors, alternating. I saw the one that has the reputation of being less likeable. I won't be seeing the other so can't make that comparison. He was dynamic, perhaps too weepy too soon. But a fine actor.

A huge iron fence across the stage was off putting. It placed a barrier that seemed (oddly) to restrict our hearing for those on the other side. Certainly it hurt the blocking and sight lines. The odd scenes after the war with burned out furniture (that no one noticed?) strewn across the floor. A huge iron wreck suspended from the ceiling (perhaps the post-war remnants of that ridiculous fence?)

The bastard in the early scenes was perfect; in the later ones, not quite as focused. The two sisters, frequently drinking (and for good reason), one as a horsey type with riding gear, the other one a princess with flowing hair and clicky high heels – good differentiation. The husbands not so grand. Too old for the women, too ineffectual as men. Odd. As was the husband for Cordelia, who looked older than King Lear, but mercifully stayed away once he had claimed her as wife.

What was so important for me on this production was the intensity. I literally stayed up until after 1:00 in the morning, letting the tension drain a bit before i could sleep. The bodies were all around us. The actors were within a few feet. The fool’s first scene was from an audience seat directly behind me: he’d been planted before the play started and sounded like a heckler. A thrown drink splashed my face. Stage "spray" was evident. This is such a huge play that placing it in this small space made it almost too immediate. The tension was high because the stakes for the audience were high – we were living this.

Which brings me back to the contemporary dress issue. When a car alarm goes off, when an intercom buzzes, etc., we laugh. The comedy in Lear is deadly serious, and must be: it is the fool's role to make us laugh with insight. The domestic laughs relieve tension. But the car alarm "jokes" drag us out of the play with cheap laughs that accomplish only a laugh.

I won't soon forget this production and probably won't read the play without remembering the delivery of specific lines and scenes. But I didn't love it. 

The Taming of the Shrew.

The earliest of the comedies, and a total and complete joy. Silliness, a compact plot that fit easily in two hours. An inspired and completely silly cast played this to the hilt. Sited at a 'Coney Island' beach carnival in Italy. It is impossible not to like this play. Kate was far more fiery than usual, with an attitude that seemed impenetrable. All of the actors were spot on. 

The most important thing here was the finessing of the misogyny that is so evident at the end. Kate capitulates totally, giving in to her husband, her lord and master, giving up everything she is. But what the director did here was brilliant. Petruccio, listening to her speech, realizes what she is giving up for love, and he, accepting the resignation, resigns to be with her. As she kneels to him, he kneels to her. It really was a transforming pantomime, and it felt exactly right. 

Two hilarious hours. 

A Midsummer Night's Dream

I almost regret booking this one, but I had the evening free and didn't want to pass up anything I could see. So, here's hoping this evening's performance will be as original as My Fair Lady's. 

I must mention the set. The same set is used for Cymbeline, Robin Hood (which I did not see) and A Midsummer Night's Dream. It is, without doubt, the ugliest set I’ve seen at Ashland in two years. The stage is nearly swallowed by six huge columns that stray off in random directions and, apparently, are there for no reason at all. The center of the stage is dominated by a two story construction that leaves a deep cave in the middle so the people off to the side of the theater must certainly miss a great deal of the action. I was fortunate to have center row seats for these plays so I could see. There are trees and trellises and vines and mushrooms all over the place. The result is a small apron where much of the action takes place and a variety of places where things happen with a great deal of climbing about. Since this is already an Elizabethan theater with various windows and openings, the whole thing is redundant nonsense. A bare stage would have been preferable. 

As usual with 'Midsummer', I go in thinking I can’t stand another production and then laugh myself silly throughout the evening. This was conventionally done except the time period: a 1964 graduation ceremony from a Catholic high school is the jumping off spot. Delightful ensemble acting. Silly opening with Theseus and Hippolyta represented by a priest and nun who are planning marriage! 

The only let down was Puck, whose character seems to have been some sort of afterthought by the director. She (Puck is a sprite who is decidedly male but frequently played by a female) starts off as a sort of lady in waiting in formal court dress, then changes into ... rags, I guess is the best description, with colored pieces of cloth hanging off her, in an attempt to look fairy like, perhaps? The overall effect was young bag lady. Her energy was varied. Her voice was grating and hard to understand (the only actor I had trouble hearing and understanding during the entire week), and she was neither of the things that Puck frequently is: a bit menacing or totally delightful with mischief. She waivered and never found a center.

The mechanicals stole the show, as usual. This time, they were the gym teacher, the lunch lady, the janitor, etc. from the high school. “Wall” was the lunch lady, decked out in strainers for her bra and lunch trays arrayed around her body and hanging from her arms. A hilarious site gag. But more important was these characters threw themselves into their roles entirely, believing in their play. 

Pyramus, the gym teacher, is inspired. His deaths (I think there were 8 or 9 alternate deaths) were hilarious and played directly to the audience. But what Shakespeare does – and what these actors made real – is use language to do exactly what he wants to accomplish. When, finally Pyramus is dead for the final time, Thisbee, an extremely tall and skinny Ichabod Crane type who is now dressed in drag, whispers her goodbyes to her friend, and in one second the audience moves from chaotic laughter to sentimental tears.

Turned on a dime. Amazing work. A thoroughly enjoyable evening

About Me

I am a college English instructor. I focus on Freshman composition, critical thinking, and literature in a small community college in the California central valley. I am also president of our Academic Senate, chair of our Honors program, and a leader of our Student Success program. The notes are simply my aide-memoire, not formal reviews or critiques. They were written in most cases the morning after the performances and then revised and augmented after returning home, after I had had a chance to think more deeply about the plays. They, in short, are not polished productions, but personal 'diary' entries.

Satima and I have been Facebook friends for many years, and I’m flattered that she asked to place my notes on your blog. I am happy to share them. I am happy to answer questions.

Twelfth Night (Film review)

Our doughty president, Frances, reviews the filmed version of the Globe Theatre's production of Twelfth Night.

It is interesting that this was an ‘Original Practices’ production, and therefore had an all-male cast, and yet for me the main focus of attention was on the female characters. The skills and technique of the men en travestie, particularly Olivia and also Maria, were outstanding.
 

I read somewhere one critic’s opinion that ‘Stephen Fry was born to play Malvolio.’ And so it appeared, although it crossed my mind at intervals that perhaps he was playing Stephen Fry. Nevertheless he carried the character with easy authority, and with a fine vocal delivery in which every word was clear, every intonation right and pauses were used judiciously. It seemed a perfect match between actor and character. His final line, with the emphasis on ‘I‘ll’ rather than the usual stress on ‘revenged’, indicated his meticulous attention to every detail of the dialogue.  


There were many fine performances in this production: Sir Toby, short and very red-faced, Sir Andrew, long and thin with lank straw-like hair, made a fine trio with a very clever and subtle Maria. Maria, with minimal gestures and changes of facial expression, allowed us to follow ‘her’ every thought. This was notable in the carousing scene, after Malvolio’s exit, as the plan for revenge developed gradually, rather than appearing ready-prepared in her mind.  

The twins were almost perfectly matched – costumes, hair and make-up of course assisting. Viola’s performance, however, was the only one about which I had any reservations. ‘Her’ delivery was too constrained by the verse structure, and natural phrasing was often disrupted, obscuring the subtleties of meaning and mood. Viola lacked the many-layered personality which I expected, including vivacity and a sense of humour.  

Then there was the other female character: Olivia, played by Mark Rylance, long associated with the Globe. This was an Olivia unlike any I have ever seen before. I had never thought of this character as contributing to the comedy of the play: in fact, in most performances she has made little lasting impression on me. Here, however, Olivia was unforgettable: volatile, changeable, unpredictable and so funny. At her first appearance she was almost an automaton. A marvellous gliding walk as if on castors brought her to her table, where she sat with Malvolio to attend to the business of a large estate, signing letters, checking invoices, etc. This was a perfect way to establish the standing of both characters. Olivia was stiff, coldly going through the motions of daily life and the annoyance of unwanted attentions from her suitor and disruptive behaviour by her kinsman. Clearly looking for anything to relieve the dreary pattern of daily life, she allowed ‘Cesario’ to enter – and then, what a change! At times skittishly reviving long-unused tricks of seduction, and then at other times uncertain and losing confidence, she showed herself capable of bursts of angry petulance, uncaring that her erstwhile dignity had flown. Delicious highlights included the picnic planned for Cesario; the rush to defend him in the duel with Sir Andrew, bearing the longest battle-pike which she swung terrifyingly close to actors and scenery; and the kiss with which she proposed to Cesario (i.e. the real and completely uncomprehending Sebastian.)

The impact of Olivia’s characterisation changed the balance of the play. I had always thought of the action as centred upon Viola, with Olivia rather off to one side, but as I think over this production it is the Countess and her household who dominate, subordinating Orsino and his entourage. However, this accords with the play’s construction – Orsino lachrymose and self-indulgent, doing very little, while the action occurs at Olivia’s. The plotting, the letter scene, the yellow stockings, the duel and the final unravelling provided one delight after another, with very few shadows darkening the frivolity. Even the cruel treatment of Malvolio passed lightly.

The music was a charming accompaniment throughout in both the Fool’s attractive voice and the instrumentalists in the gallery. They contributed to the sunny warmth of a delightful performance.

A new home for the Shakespeare Club

Earlier this year, a local paper featured an interview with our president, Frances Dharmalingam, which created a lot of interest and as a result, we found ourselves inundated with new members! This is wonderful, because we'd been looking for 'new blood' for quite some time.

What we hadn't reckoned on was that with ten or twelve extra people, we could no longer meet at the State Library for reasons of health and safety - the room available to us is only allowed to hold 18 persons. So we had to look for a new home.

Frances spent many hours on foot and on the phone, but finally she found us what looks like a very satisfactory venue - the Citiplace Community Centre on the concourse of the Perth Railway Station. There is parking under the nearby State Art Gallery and of course the train could hardly be closer!

Our new home. To the left is the footbridge to the Cultural Centre and almost opposite are the railway platforms

Last meeting and next - on 20 July at 2.00pm - we're reading Volpone by Ben Jonson, a contemporary of our beloved Bard, then in August we shall have the first of two meetings devoted to the perennial favourite, Romeo and Juliet. This might be a good opportunity for more newcomers to 'try us out' by listening to a reading and perhaps repairing to the neighbouring Art Gallery Cafe for a beverage and a chat afterwards.

Henry V

Frances, our president, gives us her impressions of a film of a staged version of this much-loved play.

 

I saw the 2012 Shakespeare’s Globe production of Henry V the other day. Although we in the antipodes have to watch it on film, the effect is as good as if we were in the audience for the live performance. And what an exciting experience it was!

Having seen the play only in films (Olivier and Branagh) I wondered particularly about the staging of scenes of war. How could even quite a large cast convince us that we were observing battle? Well, very cleverly! The charge against Harfleur’s defences was preceded by a fine ‘Once more unto the breach….’ King Henry addressed the audience directly, as the English army, in a rousing call, building to a fitting climax as it ended with the entire packed crowd at the Globe joining in the cry, ‘God for Harry, England and St. George’ as the cast members charged forward from amongst them on to the stage and through the ‘breach’ at the back. It was electrifying, and one could well have believed that the numbers were far greater than they really were.

Later, of course, there was the stirring speech for St. Crispin’s Day – delivered quietly and persuasively rather than dramatically. It gave the sense of a necessary pause for reflection before the heat of the battle of Agincourt. Here a quite different method proved equally powerful: stylised, almost balletic, movements emphasised, first, the role of the archers and then the brutal close fighting with swords and axes.

Henry V’s character is sometimes said to be inaccessible, but in this production the actor, Jamie Parker, had decided exactly who and what he was portraying. This Henry was evidently a grown-up (Prince Hal long gone), a king not necessarily keen to conquer France, but intelligently and carefully weighing the legalities of his claim and considering his advisors’ counsel. Nonetheless he was hot-tempered, roused by the Dauphin’s insulting present, and shown powerfully later, after the slaughter of the baggage boys, with the order to kill all prisoners. This was a rounded character, comradely with his nobles, and talking easily with the men on the night watch; able to enjoy the humour of the gloves episode and his dealings with Fluellen; and slipping smoothly into the full comedy (as it was played) of Katharine’s wooing. This scene gave us the necessary joyous conclusion after the tensions of the war.

There were some beautiful and subtle details in this performance. Henry was revealed as a leader who very reluctantly adopted harsh measures. The speech to the citizens of Harfleur was spoken as by a battle-weary soldier who appeared to hate the horrifying threats he uttered, and was reciting them as the required formula, the routine procedure in this (unbroken siege) situation. There was a striking divide between the dreadful images of violence to the civilian population in his words, and the exhaustion and revulsion of his manner.

Yet another facet of his personality showed in his prayer before Agincourt, kneeling before his sword raised as a cross. The words had an extraordinary intensity and took the listener right back to Richard and Bolingbroke and the shadow of the usurpation of a rightful king. Earlier in the play, the death of Falstaff harked back to the preceding plays. Just as Pistol and company were leaving for the wars, Falstaff’s corpse, swathed in winding sheets, was lowered from the upper storey of the inn and carried away in silence. This seemed to me an ingenious way to complete his story and further preserve the continuity through the tetralogy.

The tangible realism of the war scenes came, of course, primarily from the fine acting of every member of the cast; also from the spattered mud and blood on their faces; and from the awareness of the technicalities of mediaeval warfare, with a marvellous detail in the emergence of the miners (via the trap-door) covered in mire and sweat.

Clearly, Henry dominated the whole play, but it was a fine ensemble performance, with every character sharply distinguishable and individual. Many, of course, played more than one role, but with effortless differentiation. I was also struck by the balance between comedy and the more serious scenes, and the easy transitions from one to the other – needless to say thanks, of course, to Shakespeare’s writing, but still great credit to the director and actors!

I could go on much longer. There was so much to notice and to think long about, but I hope I have at least shown some of the reasons why I so admired (and will remember) this show.