Theatre
Macho dreams
Peter Jenkins
The Taming of the Shrew (Aldwych) It was tempting to look for topical hints when last year's Stratford production of the Shrew arrived in London only a week before polling day, especially as Michael Bogdanov has turned the play round quite brilliantly so that the woman in the end gets the better of the men. Indeed he has turned the whole piece into a satire on male chauvinism and thereby made acceptable, as well as immensely enjoyable, a play which if left to Shakespeare would today seem a monstrous affront.
Hazlitt advised all husbands to study the character of Petruchio but Bogdanov turns him into a psycopath. The soliloquy in Act II, Scene i in which he declares how sweetly he will woo the notorious Kate is spoken while he twists a white silk scarf in what could be murderous hands. There is plenty of evidence in the original of Petruchio's being mad — on his first appearance he assaults his servant Grumio, who later in the play cries out `Help master, help. My master is mad.' Bogdanov's innovation, however, is to turn the entire play into the male domination fantasy of a drunken Irish tinker.
The evening begins with a superb coup de theatre as a drunk, wandered in from the embankment, eludes an usherette and climbs onto the stage where he proceeds to destroy the scenery for what looked as if it was going to be an ultra-traditional production. This is the Christopher Sly who, eventually collapsed into alcoholic stupor, is discovered by the noble huntsmen. A prac tical joke is played upon him to convince him that far from being a drunken tinker he is a lord and, in the original, he settles down, glass filled and wench at hand, to enjoy The Taming of the Shrew as done by some wandering players who conveniently arrive. The play has been done before as Sly's dream but here Sly himself becomes Pet; ruchio, the would-be lord over woman, allut this works wonders for the sexist theme 0' the play. Bogdanov's second coup comes in the final scene where Kate makes the subri,s. sion which through the ages has been regarded as one of the great touching Or. mations of womanhood. This is where she says, inter alia, Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee, And for thy maintenance; commits his body To painful labour both by sea and land, To watch the night in storms, the day in cold, Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe . . .
This speech, the great climax of the PlaY' is turned in Bogdanov's production into a biting satire of all that has gone before, at tongue-in-cheek manifesto for the pussr-ca club. It is done with the men sitting arountl. green baize poker table. At the end of Petruchio, the winner of the wager II obedience of woman, is the loser after a° and as Kate stoops to kiss his foot be' ashamedly, withdraws it. The women leavAe, the men to their cards and the play efl with the reminder of the hunting 11°I'li„ which first had prompted Sly's machisnl' dream. Bogdanov's production is inventive .atts every opportunity, almost too much so in I d modern Italian dress, its Glaswegian 3,/la Cockney accents, the town band PlaY:,c0 echoes from Kiss me Kate and Petru.,c"; torturing the starving Kate with the NHL.; ceur cookery book in hand. However ty.t sub-plot of the Shrew needs all the heir can get and this production is kept mnvil with pastiche and allusion and plenty '3! good jokes. We could do perhaps wirh011f the motorbike which has become a chic modern Italianate Shakespeare. on As for the acting, Jonathan PrY0e for occasions, I though, went too far example when introducing an imitation ts Max Wall — but left us in no doubt that he io a dashing and versatile actor. Prto Dionisotti for some reason made Kate,„,inis, a plain Shrew but she carried off the su°'",s sion speech quite brilliantly. Bogdaria"to orgiastic ingenuity allows opportunittesat, almost every character in the play but °.;t3 standing were Paul Brooke doing BaP0. as a shady stockbroker, Ian Charleson tthod ing Tranio into a Glaswegian punter ol that wonderful character actor 03:de Suchet doing Grumio as an East End *loci boy. Altogether, it was a surprising ° exciting evening in the theatre.
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