The Taming of the Shrew at the Tobacco Factory
Bristol's Theatre-in-the-Round Failed with Shakespeare's Comedy
Nov 11, 2008
When we first met Saskia Portway’s Katherine in the Tobacco Factory production of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, this seemingly depressed woman bore no resemblance to the wildcat full of sass and energy described by the other characters onstage. The production’s general crime of excessive pausing found its biggest offender in Portway.
Katherine is a difficult character to play, with many scenes spent silently onstage, having major decisions about her life made by others. Why, then, did Portway insist on adding even more pauses to fill with silent acting? She spent most of her time acting between the lines rather than using them to her advantage. She could be excused for her flaws, however, as Andrew Hilton’s direction – so obviously focused on Petruchio – couldn’t have given her much to work with.
None of the women in this production were ever allowed to engage with and speak directly to the audience. The men had the opportunity to build that rapport with their spectators, but without the ability to feel the same sense of connection with Katherine, the audience struggled to care about her. More than anything, it just felt that she was a bit of window-dressing for Leo Wringer’s tamer, and so her character never had the opportunity fully to develop a convincing and engaging arc.
Petruchio and Katherine
Wringer, for his part, played a Petruchio who came across as jovial and well-intentioned, and his genuine affection for Katherine proved moving despite a lack of chemistry due to Portway’s morose shrew. In the “Sun and Moon” scene (IV.5), Wringer’s delight in Katherine’s acceptance of his rule was cautiously giddy. Here, too, a strange change happened to Kate: she suddenly developed a sense of humour which had hitherto eluded her. Before this, she had hardly cracked a smile. So while she finally became a mildly interesting human being, the transition made no sense in the face of her previous failure to find anything funny.
The final scene, in which Katherine expounds upon the duties owed by a wife to her husband, proved to be one of the most moving of the production. Portway once again filled her ending speech with verse-butchering pauses, but Wringer’s reaction to her made up for the choppy flow. He quietly observed her speech sitting in a chair. When she finished, having sat on the ground before him and stretched out her hand on the floor (“Place your hand beneath your husband’s foot” [V.2.177]), he slowly left his chair and lowered himself, ending up prostrate before her and kissing her proffered hand. It became clear that the two had come to terms with each other – each happy to treat the other with respect and affection.
The Director's Vision
In the program notes for this production, Hilton acknowledged the difficulties facing modern directors when presenting The Taming of the Shrew. Certainly, the decidedly chauvinistic bent of the action tends to make today’s audiences a little squirmy. But while Hilton expresses his concern about the play’s message, he also reveals a bias of his own, which showed itself in his production: his notes focus exclusively on Petruchio.
Clearly for him, the story is about the “tamer” rather than the “tamed.” He doesn’t seem nearly as concerned with Katherine’s reaction to the treatment she receives as he is with Petruchio’s justification for, and lesson learned by, taming her. Hilton recognizes the dangerous territory that male directors potentially face when directing Shrew. But in his preoccupation to prove that Petruchio learns his modern lesson in feminism, this director forgets that the heart of any production must be an engagement with Katherine. As a result, this production lacked an emotional linch-pin.
