Dutch Country Players present Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew in a western setting-a battle of the sexes–in Texas

Theater: Dutch Country Players
Show Title: William Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew
Opened: July 13, 2007
Seen: July 14, 2007
Reviewer: Arnie Finkel
Submitted: July 15, 2007

When I was in school, even in college, I hated (well at least disliked) the study of Shakespeare.  Here I was a radio-TV student with a Theater minor, and I couldn’t read Shakespeare comfortably.  Oh yes I got the poetry and the plots and the authors great insight into the human condition, but the difficulty in looking up all the references drove me up a wall. 

Then I saw a production of King Lear, and I realized that the plays were meant to be performed.  They came alive on the stage in the hands of people who could make the language seem like every day speech.  It is with this background that I saw the Dutch Country production of The Taming of the Shrew.

So—let me start with the language.  Director Ray Thompson set his production in the American West.  Sort of Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes—in Texas.  While it’s an interesting take on a play written in England in about 1596, it had to place a burden on the cast to speak the prose and poetry in a western drawl.  Most of the cast managed quite well.  I was particularly impressed with the speech of Tranio(Jason Salotti), but then he, for some reason, did not use the drawl. 

Mr. Thompson included the rarely performed Induction.  This prelude doesn’t add much to the play except maybe fifteen or twenty minutes to the running time.  Aaron Joseph Krolikowski gave a well done comic turn as Christopher Sly.  He used the language well and was very funny.  The script doesn’t give the characters in the Induction any finish but this production used them to continue to comment extemporaneously.  Each of the principals was used later in the play as another character.  They (Cassandra Hogan and Dan Maricle) were better used in these secondary parts.

The plot of Taming of a Shrew has Petruchio (Wesley Hrabina) “killing his wife with kindness” The shrew of the title, Katherina was played by Nancy Server Thompson.   She managed the conversion from forward shrew to obedient spouse well.  Her big speech at the end of the play was very effective.  The most exciting and best played scene in the play was the extremely physical wooing scene in Act One.   This was well directed and acted.

A sub plot concerns the competition for the hand of Bianca (Rebecca Schimer) the younger sister of Katherina.   In the running are Lucentio (Bill Lamack), Hortensio (Bill Riccardi) and Gremio (Sandra Landers).  Lucentio and Bianca have several scenes involving lots of kissing.  Nice work if you can get it.  The two were good together. 

I must stop here and pay compliment to Sandra Landers. Her portrait of Gremio as an elderly Mexican complete with Spanish accent was a hoot.  She created a believable and consistent character.  As Baptista, the girl’s father, Phil Cook with his deep voice gave an imitation of John Wayne that does him credit.

In Shakespeare’s day all the women parts were played by young men.  This production was just the opposite.  All the servants were played by women (Giz Coughlin, Alexis Solnoski, Erin Baliles, Caris Baliles, Felicia Kaufman and Maggie Swahl). How nice to give the young people a line or two of Shakespeare to recite.  Giz Coughlin was particularly effective as Biondello.

The barn that houses DCP is a comfortable space.  Set designer Tom Amy used a minimal set of two screen doors and several boxes of different sizes which were moved about in many places.  I thought that a few less moves would speed the action, but that’s a minor complaint.  Bill Thompson handled the lights and sound and Annina Jordan dressed the cast.  She did a super job on Gremio the Mexican Grandee.  The device of projected slides to announce the scenes and provide some backgrounds was designed by Colleen Hart and was a welcome addition.

Ray Thompson kept the pace up and used parallel movements well.  He created several pleasing stage pictures.   The almost three hours running time could have been reduced by some judicious cutting and I still doubt the necessity of the Induction. 

Good for DCP for trying a classic.  Their 351^st production of their 56^th season runs through July 29^th.

Arnie Finkel