The Taming of the Shrew 2008

7th February - 15th March 2008 

For this production Dominic Power wrote an epilogue to complete the Christopher Sly 'framing' of the Petruchio/Katherina main plot. No critic questioned its authenticity; two actually welcomed its restoration. The version is available on request from the SATTF office.

Katherina & Petruchio Saskia Portway as Katherina and Leo Wringer as Petruchio.  (Photo: Graham Burke)

Directors Note

   Any director – and particularly a male one – approaches this play with some circumspection.  With the possible exception of The Merchant of Venice, it is perhaps the only play of Shakespeare’s that has provoked attacks on his own politics – and it has done since soon after it was written.  One of the many marvels about Shakespeare is that he is usually unlocatable within the argument of his plays.  He creates many spokesmen and women for many points of view, but those views appear to belong only to the characters themselves.  Which - if any - are mouthpieces for Shakespeare we can only guess.  More than that, it seems to be fundamental to the breadth of his art that he portrays as he sees, not as he would wish to see; that he is never a polemicist, never seeking to teach, to lead, or to admonish.
   But in Petruchio’s determination to ‘tame’ Kate and to oblige her to accept an uncompromisingly patriarchal view of marriage, it is widely assumed Shakespeare makes an exception.  While Petruchio and Shakespeare may not be one and the same, Shakespeare is surely endorsing Petruchio’s purpose, approving his use of domestic violence to achieve it, and finally complicit with him in making Kate parrot her husband’s sexist creed.
   While it seems to me ridiculous and futile to argue (as it has been, in many attempts to make the play acceptable to modern sensibilities) that the play should be read, or played in completely opposite a fashion - as a discreet feminist victory over a male chauvinist pig - I believe that we should experience Petruchio as we do any other Shakespeare character.  He is as much under his creator’s scrutiny as are the men and women who populate the debased and mercenary society of Padua.  What happens to him on his journey into marriage may be very different from what he has envisaged, or intended, at the outset.  It will certainly be more complex, and human, than a bald attempt to educate a woman in the orthodox Elizabethan belief in wifely subservience.   Such complexity and humanity is the life of the drama.  Leading characters who understand themselves completely and are in complete control of their destiny make for dull theatre.  Petruchio is not among their number. Andrew Hilton

Cast

Christopher Sly Bill Wallis   
Hostess / Widow Francesca Ryan
Lord / Philip Nicholas Gadd
1st Huntsman / Clerk / Pedant Jonathan Nibbs
2nd Huntsman/ Clerk / Vincentio Alan Coveney 
Page / Biondello Oliver Millingham
Gremio / Curtis Paul Nicholson
Petruchio Leo Wringer
Lucentio Oliver le Sueur
Grumio Dan Starkey
Baptista Roland Oliver
Hortensio Philip Buck
Bianca Annabel Scholey
Tranio Chris Donnelly
Katherina Saskia Portway

Production

Director Andrew Hilton
Associate Director & Editor Dominic Power
Assistant Director Emma Earle
Set & Costume Designer Chris Gylee
Costume Supervisor Rosalind Marshall
Lighting Designer Tim Streader
Composer & Sound Designer Dan Jones
Production Photographer Graham Burke

Production Manager Tim Hughes
Stage Manager Jayne Byrom
Deputy Stage Manager Eleanor Dixon
Assistant Stage Manager Adam Moore
Costume Maintenance Angie Parker
Costume Laundry Kim Winter 

Reviews

The Guardian
15th February 2008
* * *
Dream, disguise and duplicity are brought to the fore in Andrew Hilton's admirably level-headed production of this tricky play. Bill Wallis opens the show as sozzled, dishevelled tinker Christopher Sly, duped into believing he is noble. What he soon realises is that he had more fun as he was.
It is the first of many cruel or competitive transformations in this uneasy comedy that leads to the taming of a feisty, fiery wife. Hilton's avoidance of even a gently feminist reinterpretation leaves us with the original drama in all its vexing complexity. Shakespeare pits two immensely powerful characters, Kate and Petruchio, against each other, with an outcome that seems to sit as uneasily with his other dramas as it does with modern sensibilities.  And yet, thanks largely to well-matched performances from Saskia Portway as Kate and Leo Wringer as Petruchio, this is a Shrew that makes you think rather than simply push its uncomfortable ideas aside. Portway screeches truculently; Wringer mixes mischief and an edge of danger in his game-playing. It is, ultimately, impossible to fathom what drives them to the accommodation they settle upon, but both find a new ease in themselves and a considerable erotic connection through it.
The Shakespeare seasons here are all about letting the plays speak directly to us. This Shrew, precisely because it doesn't try to gloss over what is unpalatable or bewildering about its characters, is no exception. Elisabeth Mahoney

The Sunday Times
February 24, 2008
* * *
The problem with Andrew Hilton’s elegant, frisky production lies in the taming process. Petruchio (Leo Wringer) and Katherina (Saskia Portway) are suitably confrontational: he’s smug and arrogant, she’s gung-ho from the word go, but there’s no hint that either of them might, even unconsciously, begin to fancy the other. Katherina is only a touch put out that he can make her laugh, and she softens up only after she has been terrorised by a power freak. That reduces the characters and the play to the politically incorrect monstrosity that feminists object to. Hilton drives the play at a sprightly pace and gives plenty of space to the supporting cast, of whom Oliver Le Sueur (Lucentio) stands out as a nimble wag who really is in love. Bill Wallis plays a grim, dim Christopher Sly: you end up almost pitying him. I wish more directors retained the prologue and epilogue; they make the play echo as a cunning, sophisticated fantasy rather than theatrical marriage guidance. John Peter

The Daily Mail
February 15th 2008
***
   THIS venue is Bristol's only serious theatre now that the city's famous Old Vic is closed. The Tobacco Factory soldiers on without any Arts Council money. A good thing, too, as it means it can't be closed down by some vengeful bureaucrat for not doing enough `edgy' drama about lesbian crack addicts. The Factory's staple is wellspoken Shakespeare for which, judging from jam-packed houses, there's a gleeful demand. The Shrew is a play which has traditionally caused feminists to retch violently. And you can see why. It's a misogynistic comedy in which Shakespeare shows how wife abuse can really improve your marriage.
   Petruchio, who has come `to wive it wealthily' in Padua, takes on the vile-tempered Kate that no suitor will touch and uses starvation and sleep deprivation to tame her ... Leo Wringer gives a wry, dignified performance in what is surely a roistering Peter O'Toole of a part. Saskia Portway is a downright venomous Kate, who shuns any hint of cutesiness as she goes through the torments of hell at the hands of her unwanted bridegroom. Her exquisite last speech about the need for wifely subservience is delivered not with an ironic wink but a dazzling sincerity that has jaws dropping along every row. This Kate is touchingly released by the bonds of love. The show tells the story in detail (the Sly the Tinker induction scene, with Bill Wallis, is kept in) for those who haven't seen this rarely performed comedy. Chris Gylee's lavish Tudor costumes are a reminder that the play's sexual politics belong in a museum. It's all highly intelligent - it just needs to be funnier and faster. Nothing, however, detracts from my view that Andrew Hilton, the director of both the show and this valuable theatre, is a hero. Robert Gore-Langton

The Morning Star
05 March 2008
More like a meeting of equals
   The intimate Tobacco Factory space opens its Shakespeare season with a wonderfully clear and amusing production set in the round on a bare stage.  No punches are pulled or theatrical slights of hand conjured to make Katherina's submission more politically correct, but the two outstanding central performances stop it being a simple conquering of a volatile feminine spirit.
   The po-faced Katherina (Saskia Portway) being starved, sleep-deprived but largely browbeaten into submission is a study in suppressed anger and frustration. The volcanic eruptions are gradually dwarfed, capped and redirected by Leo Wringer's outstanding Petruchio. His performance, which is, at times manic, quashes not only his wife's feisty, fiery temperament but also any opposition from the onlookers. His intensity, passion and sense of playing a game, however serious, is never lost and evident in his troubled looks before the final test of his wife's loyalty.  Their final kiss is full of passion and suggests an equality and happiness that both have found in contrast to the other more traditionally married couples.
   The 16-strong cast are uniformly strong, from Bill Wallis as the portly, drunken Brummie Sly, who is struggling to get to grips, then revelling in his new-found reality, to Annabel Scholey's rather spoilt, aloof and superficially charming Bianca and Roland Oliver's understandably world-weary Baptista, who is always busy trying to resolve the plight of his unmarried daughters.
   The production generates laughs throughout, not only in the central battle of the sexes but in the disguised suitor wars, the mistaken identities and the range of attitude-endowed servants. Andrew Hilton should be congratulated on yet another detailed, clear and highly engaging Shakespeare production. Simon Parsons

Venue
22nd Feb – 2nd March 2008
* * * * *
It’s a sticky one, ‘ Shrew’. Apparently condoning Petruchio’s unsavoury ‘taming’ and Kate’s ‘submission’, it’s been vilified as sexist tripe, excused as Shakespeare being ironic and occasionally refashioned to include huge dollops of political correctness. Shakespeare At The Tobacco Factory take a robust, intelligent, exploratory approach, neither skating over the difficult stuff nor twisting it to fit a preconceived agenda. As Kate and Petruchio, Saskia Portway and Leo Wringer map every shift in the troubled couple’s relationship, their finely nuanced characters light years away from the conventional socio/psychopath double-act. Portway visibly bristles with conflicting emotions while Wringer is simultaneously bully, mischief-maker and bemused outsider. What’s more, thanks to SATTF’s democratic instinct for giving seemingly minor characters their due (Chris Donnelly’s Tranio, say, or Dan Starkey’s Grumio), their story is firmly set in the context of a mercenary society where everyone’s on the make, love is a commodity and Baptista (a spectacularly ruffed Roland Oliver) glibly trades his daughters for cash. Likewise, by including the framing device of Sly the tinker’s ‘dream’ (Bill Wallis), this is very much a play-within-a-play, that slight distance a reminder that the politics are in your reaction: you might be righteously appalled, think Kate’s big speech is a satirical proto-feminist scam or sink into retarded Daily Mail chauvinism. That’s up to you. Brilliantly, this is all done without losing the humour, wit and humanity that makes ‘Shrew’ a play rather than just an intellectual exercise. Tom Phillips

Bath Chronicle
21 February 2008
   Modern sensibilties about womanhood usually render this a problem play.  How dare Petruchio brutalise Kate so?  How dare she capitulate so wholeheartedly? Surely he must be portrayed as a monster? Surely her final speech must be made palatable with side helpings of irony? Andrew Hilton has no truck with such political correctness. He brushes up his Shakespeare with absolutely nothing that isn't there in the first place and the result, as ever, is astonishingly good. His Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory players have graced us with their presence for nine springtimes now and they just keep on getting better.
   Chris Donnelly, Jonathan Nibbs, Paul Nicholson, Roland Oliver, Saskia Portway . . . they're like old friends you can't wait to see again and who never fail to surprise and delight when they turn up. This production teams up Portway as Kate with Leo Wringer as Petruchio, inspired casting following their success as Desdemona and Othello last year. Their versatility shines out.
   The best performers in any field make difficult things look simple and in this case the couple handle the complexities of the text and the intricacies of their characters with assured ease and naturalness. In the end there is nothing offensive about Kate's honest-to-goodness endorsement of domestic bliss Elizabethan-style: it comes over as perfectly reasonable in the spirit of the times. Full marks too to Bill Wallis as the hoodwinked drunk Christopher Sly, who touchingly grunts and tumbles his way through not only the familiar Induction but also the rarely seen Epilogue, neatly inserted from an early Quarto version. Peter Patston

Metro
It may have been three hours long but the near-sell-out audience at Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory's new production of The Taming of the Shrew were captivated by it.
Director Andrew Hilton has chosen a minimalist set, with the action performed in the round.   The characters speak for themselves and there is no politically correct whitewashing of the play's dubious sexual politics.   It helps, perhaps, that the Elizabethan costumes place events firmly in the past. In his cruel 'breaking' of Kate, Leo Wringer's devilish and likeable Petruchio wears a smile, as if to imply that he doesn't really mean to hurt her.   There is a palpable chemistry between him and Saskia Portway's excellent Kate.   A spitting whirl of objection, all her anger is expressed in a mouth sour and puckered as it works on an apple.   Though her sudden submission to her husband still rankles, in their last scene Petruchio is visibly incredulous when Kate offers her hand for him to stand on, and he kisses it instead.   It is a genuinely moving act of love; they have both surrendered. This Shrew is stronger for its backstory being played as strongly as its lead.   Praise must go to Oliver le Sueur's enigmatic Lucentio and Bill Wallis's amusing Christopher Sly. Lucie Wood

 

The Stage
14th February 2008
With the Bristol Old Vic in cold storage until at least Christmas 2009, Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory artistic director Andrew Hilton has admitted a modicum of embarrassment at being in charge of what is currently the city's main production company.   If he continues to produce work of this clarity, however, he need not worry. The Shrew is among the most testing and ironic of the comedies, with some even seeing it as the Bard's revenge on his own shrewish wife.   Hilton and his splendid principal players make sure the rollicking action is full of bustle and animation, while avoiding the element of burlesque that can make some pepped-up productions appear vulgar.   The key scene, of course, is Katherina's submissive 'Whole Duty of Woman' speech which has outraged feminists down the ages.   Here, Saskia Portway wisely avoids any tongue in cheek approach and, as is so important in the company's familiar chamber approach to Shakespeare, stays solidly faithful to the text.   Leo Wringer, as her boisterous wooer Petruchio, offers his own submission to the power of love right at the end, while Annabel Scholey and Oliver Le Sueur make sure the Bianca/Lucentio love match is an altogether more genteel affair. Amid Shakespeare's usual annoying coterie of sharp-tongued servants, Chris Donnelly's bold Tranio and Oliver Millingham's knowing Biondello emerge as largely audience-friendly, while Roland Oliver and Bill Wallis are suitably put upon as the elderly Baptista and Christopher Sly respectively. Jeremy Brien