Romeo pressing Juliet to his chest, weeping over his lost love. Hamlet reciting his famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy while balancing a skull. Titania and Oberon dancing around the forest with their fairy army. These are some images that my mind conjures up when I think of Shakespeare.
What doesn’t immediately appear in my English major’s repertoire of Shakespeare literary devices or thematic trails is a trailer park plotted in sunny, and semi-alcoholic, Padua. But that’s what you get when BareStage Productions tackles The Taming of the Shrew in their own unique perspective. And somehow, it completely works.
Director Hannah Hudson takes audiences on an unexpected, yet wildly entertaining and refreshing adventure as she opts for a modern setting: a trailer park complete with a toilet grill, a clothes washer full of beer, and bandana bell bottoms. What more could you want from a production? I thought, as I sat in my seat, envious of the genius who thought it would be revolutionary to cook a hot dog on a toilet seat.
The answer was simple: gender-bending.
The play originally focuses on Petruchio and his efforts to woo over Katherina, the sharp-tongued shrew. Katherina does not want to marry Petruchio, but is forced to wed him and then be subjected to his abusive behaviors in order to transform her into a subdued and obedient wife. Once Katherina, the eldest daughter, finally marries Petruchio, her little sister Bianca is eligible for marriage and soon has a swarm of suitors fighting after her affections.
Unsatisfied with this, Hudson revamped the play and changed a couple of names: Petruchio became the female Petronelle (Elizabeth Mathis) and Katherina transformed into Christopher (James Lewis). Bianca shed her femininity and instead became heartthrob Blake. The potential suitors fawning after Bianca became a slew of fangirls reminiscent of One Direction’s maniacal band of groupies.
Now, the play is about more than the conventional man pursues woman, man wins woman. It is about more than the crude, misogynistic humor typical of Shakespeare’s time when society deemed men superior to women. Instead, the play takes these gender roles, swaps them, and gives the female characters fierce agency. But it still wasn’t enough.
“We originally thought the swapped gender roles would fix the inherent problems of this play, but at the end of the day, the relationship between Kit and Petra was still abusive. We didn’t find this funny, and we knew that the Berkeley community wouldn’t find this funny. So beyond gender-bending in the play, we also had to deliberately change the ‘conventional’ way to say most of our lines. The relationship is now between two people who genuinely love each other and like to teach each other rather than between an abusive party and a subservient party,” stated Elizabeth Mathis who accepted the daunting role of playing Petronelle, the sassy, quick-witted and confident suitor of Christopher.
However, it took a while for the ameliorating of the abusive tendencies to take full effect. In the beginning of the relationship between Mathis and Lewis, there still seemed to be a tension that felt borderline abusive and a bit uncomfortable. Sometimes the audience couldn’t tell if the jokes were meant to be flirty or if they were meant to be hurtful. It may have been with the aggression Mathis used to perform her lines, but it still felt as if Lewis was being attacked and belittled for much of the first half. It was not until post-marriage that the chemistry of Petronelle and Christopher heated up, and what seemed at first to be vicious insults evolved into seductive teasing and flirting.
With that being said, however, the second half did live up to the expectations Hudson set as a play of unconventional norms. Strong females graced the stage, with standout performances from Julia Anderson as rich, Blake-obsessed Lucentio and Lily Berger as Gremio. Anderson’s boy-crazed lust for Blake reminded me of myself when I had my first crush. It was hilarious, believable, and a bit embarrassing to watch-but in a good way. Berger stole the show as the elderly next door neighbor also in the competition vying for Blake’s affections. The confidence with which she carried herself, even as an old woman who shouldn’t have stood a chance at winning Blake, was reminiscent of the conviction that each female character utilized in getting what she wanted.
The delightful unconventionality continued as the gender-bending allowed the women in the play to have a strong, defined agency that is often questionable in Shakespeare plays. Mathis perfectly portrays this agency as she uses her seductive jokes and quips to turn Lewis into a respectful man. This is prevalent in the second act, where Hudson’s anti-abusive relationship messages suddenly thrive, especially the closing dialogue where Christopher declares his everlasting love for Petronelle. It’s a moment that hits you right in the feels.
Other standout performances include the bromance of Grumio (Sean Fortenberry) and Biodello (Alex Kowntazki). From grilling hot dogs together to singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, these two fellows perfectly encapsulate Shakespeare’s classic foolish characters. And look out for a fight scene with a provocative nipslip from Vincentio (Mattho Mandersloot).
The play does suffer from some minor issues, however. Sometimes dialogue was recited too quickly, and it was easy to miss plot points. The initial scene does not seem to fit the rest of the theme of the play, and I was unsure how it correlated at all.
Despite these minor nuances, the production takes a classic Shakespeare play and creates a rendition that flushes outdated misogynistic views and ideals down the toilet grill. It rips down the barriers of gender binaries and it loudly proclaims an intolerance to the emotional abuse of romantic relationships. And hell, if none of that interests you, at least stay for the toilet grill that Shakespeare would have been proud of, according to Mathis. “He would have been wowed by the whole gas power/indoor plumbing thing,” she states. And so are we. But what speaks to us more is not the trailer park technology we wish we thought of, it’s the knowledge that even though what has been considered a social norm for hundreds of years does not mean that we have to continue to accept them. Instead, we have the power to oppose these norms and create new ones in their place. That’s what Hudson and her BareStage cast has done in this production.
Images: Riley Bathauer Photography
Catch BareStage’s “The Taming of the Shrew” in the Choral Rehearsal Hall in the basement of the Cesar Chavez Center on March 5th, 11th, and 12th at 8:00pm or March 6th and 13th at 5:00pm.
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