The Taming of the Shrew

I'm putting this in the "books" category.  Technically, it's a play, which doesn't mean it's not a book, it just means it's not a novel.  But I think often "novel" gets equated with "book," when people are talking fiction writing.  Anyway, last night I went to see a play!

Early every summer, Shakespeare Festival St. Louis puts on one of the bard's plays in Forest Park.  It's fun, it's free, it's Willy.  Everyone should go!  This year, the selections was The Taming of the Shrew (available in full here, compliments of The Tech).

For this light comedy, the producer (or director, or art director, or whomever has the job of picking the setting) decided on a suburban 1950s backdrop for our lovelorn cast.  I have mixed feelings about that.  As a general rule, I like Shakespeare in Shakespearean times, or at least within a few hundred years of that.  (However, I will make a few exceptions; I actually really liked Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, which was set in some weird near-future version of the world we know.)  But I like that the language is so timeless and versatile that it can be plunked down on any set in any time, even if I don't always like the way the staging turns out.

Now, about last night.  There were a few really funny characters; Grumio takes the cake for hilarity, and Sly and Vincentio were pretty funny too.  Bianca's character was irritating; I suppose to portray her child-like qualities, she really acted like she was about four, even though the whole point of the play is that all these men want to marry her.  Four is a little young for a bride, I think.  Petruchio and Katharina both, I thought, did a good job delivering their lines in a very natural way; I guess what I'm trying to say is that they seemed to have the smoothest mix of language and setting, although they never really went through the transformation to lovers that they're supposed to make.

This was the first live performance of The Taming of the Shrew that I've seen.  Remember how I watched 10 Things I Hate About You in preparation for last night?  Well, I also got Franco Zefferilli's Taylor-Burton version of Taming from the library, but didn't have time to watch it.  I'll get to that soon, hopefully.  But even given that I don't have much to compare it to, I can imagine better stagings.  All the light comedy was there last night, but sometimes it just seemed like the play lost its way a little bit.  (Really, when you compare any show they could've put on this year to last year's Hamlet, it would be hard to measure up.)