Taming of the Shrew

(photo by Jim Baldassare)
January 16th & February 10th, 2007, Roundtable Ensemble
Presented by the Roundtable Ensemble
at the American Theatre of Actors, 314 W. 54th St., NYC
Wed, Fri, Sun @ 8pm; Sat @ 3pm

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• Hi-Five Pick of the Week!
• Chosen one of The NewTheatre Corps Five Favorites!
• NYTheatre.com Editor's Pick!

In this highly engaging production of Shakespeare's classic battle of the sexes, seven actors play 23 roles in a fast-paced play within a play.... Under Grosso's inspired direction, B. Brian Argotsinger, Arthur Aulisi, Tom Butler, Autumn Dornfeld, Jonathan Kells Phillips, Alex Smith, and Paul Whitthorne showcase their versatility in highly physical, energetic ensemble work.... It's a delightful production; the acting is surprising, the stage business brims with life, and the Elizabethan text leaps off the page, becoming entirely accessible.... This Shrew is a highly theatrical, entertaining production... See it.
- Nancy Ellen Shore, Backstage

The Round Table Ensemble's latest production uses seven actors for the 23 roles of Bill Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, doling it out as a 90-minute booster shot for one of the Bard's more misogynistic pieces. The fact that Katrina is played by a man in this production may assuage feminist fears; that the entire show takes place behind the scenes of a USO production of Shrew should ease the "been there, done that" trauma of bad festival productions and 10 Things I Hate About You. A postmodernist Shakespeare would be proud. (FK)
-(FK) , Flavorpill

The principal pleasure of the Roundtable Ensemble's current production of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew is the cast's ability to convince us that the whole play is being improvised. Director Andrew Grosso's concept that the whole thing is being played out backstage at a USO show as a sort of competition between military officers and entertainers gives the actors a good excuse to madly switch off characters, and seemingly riff off each other's cues... it's a great showcase for this acting talent.

The basic story is well-known: As a joke, a group of men convince the drunken Christopher Sly that he actually is a nobleman and perform a play for him. The play involves a Signor Baptista's two daughters: ill-tempered Katherina and beautiful Bianca. Lucentio wants to marry Bianca, as do two other suitors, but Baptista won't marry Bianca off until Katherina is married first. Petruchio, seeking a wife who will make him rich, arrives and agrees to woo Kate. She puts up quite a fight, demeaning him with volley after volley of invective, but Petruchio still announces they will be married. Her insults are returned when he shows up late to the wedding and then proceeds to deprive her of food, claiming that it isn't good enough for her. Bianca and Lucentio are married after a series of incidents involving disguises and mistaken identity, and Hortensio marries a widow (in this production Christopher Sly is inspired to jump into the on-stage action to portray the widow), and all are surprised that it is Bianca, not Kate, that is uncooperative at the group wedding banquet.

The production moves quickly and is performed in one 90-minute act... The size of the cast is economical, too: each of the actors (aside from Kate, Petruchio, and Sly) plays multiple roles and often they are frantically switching between characters... the cast does a very good job of keeping it clear who is who, even when performing several roles within one scene! They excel at putting on various accents and genders, not to mention costume pieces, and it's all done to great comic effect.

Each of the players is worth mentioning. Tom Butler's Petruchio is a swaggering soldier at the beginning, but layers of depth are revealed as he pursues and "tames" Kate. Paul Whitthorne is a prissy, sour Kate, which is appropriate, but he makes his journey to her final submission a believable one and becomes a much warmer presence. Autumn Dornfeld is terrific in several roles including Bianca and Gremio. Jonathan Kells Phillips has come up with some very funny characterizations, including a Pedant who seems to owe something to Jim Backus of Gilligan's Island. B. Brian Argotsinger puts his nebbishy persona to good use throughout and Alex Smith proves to be the most chameleonic, taking on no less than 9 roles, sometimes switching characters from line to line.

Ironically, however, it is the actor with the least stage time who makes the most lasting impression. Arthur Aulisi is genuinely touching as the drunkard Sly, who watches the whole play from the first row of the audience and is so moved and enchanted by the spell of the storytelling that he joins the actors on stage to play the widow in the final scene. For the conclusion of the play, Aulisi plays Sly as more childlike than drunk, and Grosso adds in Rosalind's epilogue from As You Like It for Sly to deliver following his "performance" as the widow. Again, Aulisi is gentle and touching in this humorous "apology" for the bad behavior of both men and women in Shrew:

I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you: and I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women—as I perceive by your simpering, none of you hates them—that between you and the women the play may please.

The staging includes a good deal of expertly-executed slapstick (Teddy Cañez is credited as fight coordinator). The set mostly consists of the Chernuchin Theatre's permanent catwalk which is smartly used, and there are some appropriate period props on the stage. Becky Lasky's costumes communicate character clearly, and she has dug up some very funny, very over-the-top costume pieces, for the actors to relish and play with.

-January 20, 2007, Matt Schicker, nytheatre.com review

The actors putting on this “Shrew” are variety players in a USO show who pass the time backstage playing cards and annoying each other with their warm-ups until a drunk (Arthur Aulisi) stumbles in. They throw him in a robe, start calling him “Lord” and plant him in the front row of the audience for the duration – or at least until he makes his own stage debut in the final act. Complicit in the duplicity, the audience is roped along into the show, with six actors tackling 23 parts (with the help of identifying props and accents).

It makes sense that for the play-within-a-play to work, there has to be some doubling. And the double casting sets up some interesting juxtapositions: If the same actor (in this case Alex Smith) plays Bianca’s father Baptista and her eventually successful suitor, Lucentio, then her eventual choice of him is both natural – after all, it’s a type she knows and of which he must approve – and slightly alarming, in its confirmation of Baptista’s power over her. (She couldn’t have made it work with the suitor Gremio, whose part actress Autumn Dornfeld takes with a pair of thick glasses and an old man’s affect.)

But the most surprising change about the Roundtable’s adaptation is the male player who takes the role of Katarina – or is forced into it, having assigned all the other parts. Once we’ve gotten over actor Paul Whitthorne’s mustache and his player’s disdain for the role, it presents us with a series of questions about the shrew’s own nature. Having seen her state, why does Petruchio (the swaggering Tom Butler) continue to pursue her? Is “shrewish” just a synonym for “too much like a man?” (Whitthorne drapes himself with a blue checked apron but makes no pretense of raising his voice to play her, foregrounding the difference.)

And it changes the titular taming: With a man in Katarina’s shoes, the struggle between her and Petruchio takes on an erotic subtext which was present in the original play when all the parts were played by men, but which our modern castings have allowed us to forget. Instead of being physically overpowered by him, the implication is that she chooses to submit. There is no pretense at unending love here: Katarina’s final speech to her fellow wives seems like a performance, rather than a lecture, and is thus easier to swallow.

The play ends on an unresolved chord; we’re left pondering Butler’s rendition of “You Belong To Me” and wondering how much truth there is in it for Baptista’s daughters.

-Ellen Wernecke, New Theatre Corps