Shrew'd

The theater department's first performance of The Taming of the Shrew was last night, and I got to join the cast for a talkback. It was a bit disorienting being on stage, especially in a theater where I've been dozens of times as an audience member (those lights are really bright! Blinding! And people are looking at me!), but I enjoyed it. The actor playing Petruchio seemed to have come, independently, to a very similar take on the play to mine, so that was nice. And I got to say some things about feminine-obedience-as-performance and playtexts-as-literature that were, I hope, at least vaguely coherent.

I like the way this production shaped up. It seemed more energetic, and more broadly comedic, than the early rehearsal I'd seen. I suppose that is one of the things the process does: makes everything a lot bigger. Or maybe it's audiences that make plays bigger, like mirrors reflecting a space back at itself.

Shrew reminds me of The Importance of Being Earnest, in a weird way. It's all about using language to break social rules and shape alternate realities (this is one of the things the Petruchio-actor and I agreed about, that Petruchio is first and foremost inducting Katharina into a game where words mean whatever the heck you want them to mean), and sometimes those realities grow out of control and take on lives of their own. I really wish it had been possible to fit the Christopher Sly framework into this production, but I had to cut it down to 90 minutes.

I am, as always, in awe of actors. They do something magical.