Metro Pulse/Backstage/Knoxville New Play Festival

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What:
The Taming of the Shrew

When:
Tuesday through Sunday until Aug. 5 at 8:30 p.m.

Where:
Tennessee Amphitheater at the World's Fair Park

This Shrew should put more faith in its Shakespeare

by Adrienne Martini

One of the reasons that Shakespeare's plays routinely crop up like mushrooms after a spring rain is that his scripts are just so darn adaptable. Want to use a moody Dane to portray your vision of indecisive angst? Pick up a copy of Hamlet. Burn to examine the horrors of fascism and power-lust? Richard III will easily fit your agenda. Greed and ageism your thing? King Lear is the script to have. Of course, each Shakespeare also comes with a side order of sex and madness, both of which always keep the punters lining up for more.

Another reason for this dead Brit's longevity is that most folks know the plot lines to his most popular works. Instead of a detriment, this familiarity with what will happen next frees up our minds to concentrate on why it happens rather than myopically focusing on the mechanics of who is doing what to whom. This liberty—like liberty in every context, I suppose—is double-edged; when the audience knows the next step in the plot dance, there absolutely has to be something to keep them engaged in the present moment, whether that be solid acting, clever characterizations, and/or splashy scenery.

Taming of the Shrew is one of those plays we know by heart, thanks to episodes of Moonlighting and films like Ten Things I Hate About You—each of which capitalized on Shakespeare's outline while reinvigorating the show with modern references and pacing. Shrew, for the three or four uninitiated, concerns Kate, the titular Shrew, and her sweet, younger sister Bianca. Miss Bianca can't marry until Kate does, by edict of dad Baptista, yet it is the sweet sis that all of the boys want. Then Petruchio arrives, tames the Shrew, and, ahem, all's well that ends well.

Now that you've been refreshed on the salient moments in the script, you are free to enjoy the flourishes that East Tennessee Shakespeare in the Park has added. This Amy Hubbard-directed version isn't a gaggle of corseted actors rolling free verse from their lips, like some costumed poetry recital. Instead it is a rollicking physical comedy, complete with pratfalls and thrown props that does a better job of capturing the spirit of the old Globe than any number of PBS' Masterpiece Theater stuffy productions.

Hubbard couldn't have located a better cast in East Tennessee; the program reads like the roster for a team of Knox theater All-Stars. Tom Parkhill proves that Petruchio can be a darn nice guy as well as Kate's overlord with his sensitive performance (he seems to be subconsciously apologizing to Kate with each act of cruelty he heaps upon her). Katie Norwood imbues Bianca with cloying cotton-candy sugariness and a mean, petulant streak that gives the character more life. Mark H. Creter is the picture of parental exhaustion as Baptista and newcomer Charles A. Long makes a walk-on role as one of Bianca's suitors into a fun, larger-than-life performance that rarely upstages the main action. But it is Pam Hurley's Kate who is the center of this show; Hurley has crafted a nuanced performance, full of flashing eyes, stomping feet, and wounded pride that you can't help but watch.

Hurley's fine work is twice as amazing when you consider all of the cultural baggage that has gotten wrapped into this seemingly simple play. Not only does Shrew set women up as wildly emotional creatures in need of taming, there is also an undercurrent of classism that disturbs modern ears. But this is part of the beauty of the Bard's writing—you can freely cut and paste text until you get the play that you are looking for. While traditionalists may shriek in their Ivory Towers at the thought, ultimately the play—its ability to maintain a consistent world and message, and, most importantly, its ability to entertain—is the thing.

And this Shrew's ability to entertain could have been greatly enhanced by some textual nips and tucks, some done to shorten the time between jokes (it is a comedy, after all), some done in deference to our television-induced attention spans. Shakespeare's plays have proven adaptable, time and again, and able to withstand the loss of some of the words. Cuts would clean up Hubbard's vision of the relationship between Kate and Petruchio, which, as it stands, wants to appease both the traditionalist and modern camps but does neither with any satisfaction.

Interpretation issues aside, Shrew is a great way to spend an evening. Even though World's Fair Park is undergoing a much-debated change, there is something ineffably charming about the Amphitheater's location. In the distance are the towers of downtown, the greenspace of the park, and an old stone church. The smell of popcorn wafts through the air. Add some wenches selling fruit and a juggler or two, and even old Will himself would be pleased.