For decades now, any production of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew has been an object of suspicion.

This is largely because its psychological and physical violence, which an Elizabethan audience would have found highly entertaining, has come to be seen as offensive.

In the current climate, presenting a play that seems to celebrate – or even encourage male chauvinism as a useful romantic strategy – verges on dangerous.

Director Thomas Makinson has found two ways around this.

First, he makes several characters gender-fluid. Petruchio becomes Petruchia, Bianca becomes Bianco and so on.

Although Petruchia’s controlling, manipulative attitudes still grate, the domestic violence aspect is considerably watered down.

Secondly, the action is heightened to emphasise the comic aspects. ….

See the full review in the Otago Daily Times

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

My first Shrew. Wow, practically half a century ago, the Royal Shakespeare Company in London at the end of the 1970s, that era of consciousness-raising and all-out war between ardent freshly-fledged feminists and die-hard male chauvinists. The Taming of the Shrew about a violent fortune hunter who marries a notoriously stroppy woman then gaslights her, ‘kills with kindness’ until she is broken, literally ‘beneath his foot’, was considered shockingly controversial in the 70s, and the staging of it dubious. Leading reviewer Michael Billington proclaimed it a play so ‘totally offensive’ it should be left on the shelf, but that 1979 production is indelibly imprinted on my mind and shaped my thinking about gender politics.

So how will Director Thomas Makinson, who gave us such a winning As You Like It a couple of years ago, approach this play about sexual oppression at Dunedin’s Globe in 2025? Well, warily, obviously, with plenty of humour and some curious choices, especially in the gender-fluidity that threatens to flood rather than flow – making this a jolly jumble, a merry muddle, but a muddle nonetheless. In the programme notes Makinson disarmingly confesses, “I am not sure if this truly works”, and with similar frankness I must admit that my response is, “Um, not really”.

Does it matter? As the student actors in SGCNZ’s national school festivals so convincingly show us, Shakespeare can take any number of bizarre interpretations and still come up smiling. This audience is certainly smiling, if somewhat baffled by the gender reversals and confusing mix of theatre genres, including a plentiful helping of commedia dell’arte. The actors have trustingly plunged into the maelstrom to support Makinson’s wild vision, and their energy and Shakespeare’s wit keep us engaged right up till a totally irresistible all-singing, all-dancing curtain call.

Last year’s triumphant Twelfth Night at the Globe (directed by Brent Caldwell) plunged us back into the 80s, with accompanying live music of that decade, which may have inspired Makinson in seeking his inspiration from the 90s. This is an interesting notion, but not fully developed, the costumes in particular lacking coherency, while if versatile music designer/actor Louisa Stabenow had been allowed to insert more era-defining music it would have helped the actors through some sticky patches. (Katherine, for instance, too often has to stand in awkward, out-of-character silence while Petruchia harangues her.) 

The set, once again cunningly designed by innovative local genius Sofie Welvaert, mimics the popular 90s puzzle game Tetris with amusing brightly-coloured cubes, dramatically outlined with brilliant neon strips by lighting magician Jordan ‘Wizard’ Wichman. These blocks are shifted by the actors to match their shifting relationships, occasionally a little distracting, but allowing for many imaginative configurations. Not knowing the game, I am happily reminded of my favourite four-year-old’s rather brutal experiments with Lego, while the splashes of crazy colour on the black theatre walls also have a cheery kindergarten look which matches the pantomimic aspects of the production.

These commedia and panto elements are quite neatly executed, and may be intended to ward off criticism of the constant casual aggro between masters and servants, siblings, parents and offspring, as well as men and women, but stylistically they sit uneasily alongside the main plot. Can violence, power imbalance and toxic relationships ever be funny? The audience seem bewildered, having already been enjoyably confused by Shakespeare’s meta prologue, in which a seemingly drunken patron stumbles onto the stage, pursued by anxious stage crew. Behind me I hear, “Is this part of the show?” answered with a laugh, “I hope so!”

Altogether the actors are a loyal and valiant band, but they have a lot to contend with. Re-gendering macho bully Petruchio as a woman may make the character less objectionable, and Belle Mullan endows Petruchia with an assured swaggering charm and lovely voice (Mullan is a singer), but it makes nonsense of the plot, and Lizzie Thomson as shrew and reluctant bride ‘Kate’ has real difficulty playing against Petruchia with conviction. 

Similarly, it is quite unbelievable that father Baptista, acted with dignity by Crispin Garden-Webster, should be so protective of a sweetly simpering younger son, Bianco (Jakob Ree), instead of a daughter, Bianca. Bianco’s favoured suitor, also reversed gender, male to female this time, is carried off with pleasing airy nonchalance by April McMillan-Perkins (another singer with lovely vocal delivery), while Stabenow as Trania transforms with cheeky aplomb from female servant to male suitor.

The other performers (including director Makinson, gallantly substituting for an incapacitated actor) make the most of some rich comedic opportunities. In the 70s RSC production I recall that these funny-sidekick/ idiot-servant roles were performed by David (Poirot) Suchet, Ian (Chariots of Fire) Charleson and Juliet (Truly Madly Deeply) Stevenson. Hence Globe stalwarts Daniel Cromar and Nic Turner, who both made fine impressions in Twelfth Night, are following in illustrious footsteps as they and their fellow players clown and slapstick their way energetically through various slick routines that have the audience giggling. Harry Almey seems born to be a jester.

I have seen some charming interpretations based on a real but denied attraction between the leads – think Beatrice and Benedick, or even better, 10 Things I Hate about You – with Katherina’s final speech not a capitulation, but a collusion with the man she loves, to fool the world in a game of pretence. Given the contempt shown for women in the world today, not least by the current President of the USA, Makinson might have been better advised to meet the awfulness of Shrewhead-on. The 1979 production that still burns in my memory entered fully into the misogyny of the play, with Jonathan Pryce as Petruchio utterly crushing Katherina (Paola Dionisotti) before realising too late that, in destroying her, he has destroyed his own chance of an excitingly equal and fulfilling relationship. 

I commend the courage of the director and the gusto of the cast in tackling this fascinating play, though I hope the younger patrons are as stimulated by the issues raised as they are amused by the knockabout humour. Currently the NZ Education Dept is idiotically wrestling yet again with the place of Shakespeare in the curriculum. Compulsion is never effective, but the universal love for the Bard’s works and unbounded enthusiasm of each new generation should ensure that resilient little theatres like our Globe keep mounting spirited and entertainingly novel productions like this.

So though I won’t be around, 50 years on, to see whether the young ones watching this topsy-turvy tangle retain as vivid a memory as I do, of their ‘first Shrew’, I am smugly confident that whether compulsory in schools or not, Shakespeare will still be on stage, delighting, inspiring and challenging us. Thanks, Globe, for the enterprise to support intriguing novel ideas and theatrical experiment, especially with such familiar classics, and to the whole huge team that it takes to produce The Taming of the Shrew. Ka pai.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer