Star rating:** Many of the great Shakespeare plays lend themselves to unlimited interpretations - The Taming of the Shrew is not one of them. Its plot is driven not by any universal human emotion such as love, ambition or jealousy, but by a situation that has no direct parallel in modern society. Of course, women are still sold to the highest bidder in some parts of the world, and abused all over it, but such situations are stubbornly resistant to comic treatment.
Star rating:**
Many of the great Shakespeare plays lend themselves to unlimited interpretations - The Taming of the Shrew is not one of them. Its plot is driven not by any universal human emotion such as love, ambition or jealousy, but by a situation that has no direct parallel in modern society. Of course, women are still sold to the highest bidder in some parts of the world, and abused all over it, but such situations are stubbornly resistant to comic treatment.
Director Gordon Barr has set his Bard in the Botanics production in contemporary nouveau riche circles, which instantly sets a light tone, but he makes things much more complicated by casting overweight actress Jennifer Dick as Katherina opposite the tiny Amie Burns Walker as Bianca. Dick gives a spirited enough performance in the early scenes, but Kate's humiliation, involving as it does the deprivation of food as well as sleep and fine clothes, feels particularly cruel and her subsequent conversion to submissive wife feels depressingly authentic rather than playfully knowing.
That's not to say that there are no laughs here. Grant O'Rourke plays Petruchio as apparently drunk or stoned (yet always lucid enough to execute his cunning plans), and this takes the edge off his character's actions and provides scope for physical comedy and playful twisting of the text. Of course, the central pair's relationship is just one aspect of a play overpopulated with suitors, which must plod along until secret identities are revealed and both sisters are matched. Those who take cushions will be glad they did.
