The Rep - 2003 to 2004 Season

clockwise from top left,
Keianna Richard, Miles Aubrey, Brian Webb Russell, Helen Shute Pettaway and Denice Hicks in Tennessee Repertory Theatre's Taming of the Shrew

A Kingdom for a Concept
How to reimagine Shakespeare for a new millennium?
Three companies craft their own approaches.

'Shrew' Takes a 1950s Spin in Music City, U.S.A.
by Robert Neblett

Perhaps one of the most problematic of Shakespeare's plays for contemporary audiences to appreciate, The Taming of the Shrew often conjures up visions of glorified domestic violence - a picture that (rightfully) disturbs our modern conceptions of love and marriage. Kate and Petruchio's tumultuous relationship traditionally has been portrayed as one of mutual physical abuse, in which the "shrew" is "tamed" by beating her into submission. Nowhere has this made its way into our collective consciousness more clearly than in the popular 1967 Zeffirelli film starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, who seem to be acting out their infamously real-life marital squabbles on the screen.

This past March, the Tennessee Repertory Theatre in Nashville explored the comedy of the piece outside of this barbaric interpretive framework by setting it in the idyllic 1950s of America's television past. At the production's helm was producing artistic director David Grapes, whose concept was based upon the supposition that Kate and Petruchio must truly fall in love with one another early on in the play, and that their battling ends when they discover the joys of reciprocal compromise, rather than domination and submission. He wanted actors Anna Stone and Grant Goodman to exhibit Heburn and Tracy's sexual dynamic, combined with a hint of James Dean's rock-and-roll defiance. Both of the partners refuse to conform to the strictures of a culture that values Bianca's shallow beauty above Kate's quick wit, and they learn that, although they play by different rules, they can play together and make the game of life twice as fun and half as lonely.

Director Grapes, scenic designer Gary C. Hoff, and costume designer Polly Boersig created a sort of "Pleasantville" in our Padua, complete with immaculate tract houses, white picket fences and perfectly mowed lawns...

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