Word: petruchio
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...acting is consistent, with a few standout performances. Benjamin Evett does admirably as both the drunken Christopher Sly and Petruchio, the conniving, arrogant man who weds Kate against her will and then domesticates her. He plays the obnoxious male bravado of the role to perfection, but again, this directorial move seems to invoke the ideas of gender relations in the play above themes of transformation. Beyond that, the casting (which includes eight men and only one woman, playing Kate) seems to play towards the gender themes as well. Bensussen may have been intrigued by Kate’s transformation rather...
...kind of base ... The plot, a musical within a musical, with its noisily surreptitious shifts from onstage to off, appears just too heavy and elaborate a vehicle for the camera to prod along. Even so, if other performers had spread the wings of song as grandly as Howard Keel (Petruchio), the picture might have been better. Handsome singer Keel, who appears to be a sort of Nelson Eddy with muscles, and is currently Hollywood's leading graduate of the Broadway school of musicomedy, has not only a fine chesty baritone but the chest to go with it ... Kathryn Grayson...
...most solid performance of the show comes from Ben Margo '04 in a turn as Petruchio, perhaps Shakespeares least likable comic character. Margo's relentless, efficient, emotionless portrait of the man who must break Kate's independent spirit focuses more upon the social necessity of curbing the Shrew's temperament and less upon the subsequent sexual conquest of her unwilling body. While this occasionally stands in contrast with the other themes brought out in the production, it is also one of its most successful elements...
This adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew features only four actors, one for Petruchio ("the tamer"), one for Kate ("the shrew"), one for Kate's sister Bianca and one for everyone else. This should be the perfect environment for the repartee between Kate and Petruchio, in the Shakespearean play that just might qualify for the record of most insults per square inch. But with lines like, "Thy husband is thy life, thy lord, thy keeper" in the conclusion, the director has some explaining to do to a modern audience. This production takes the approach that the play is more...
...answer, surprisingly, is both. Although the zany prologue begins the production on a hysterical note, that wonderful craziness begins to wither away early into the actual play. Nearly everyone dons period costumes after the prologue, which makes Kate's t-shirt and jeans and Petruchio's black vinyl pants look out of place rather than creative. The lighting, while fine for some moments, misses its mark most of the time, and hides from the audience some of the most gifted and expressive actors this school has to offer. The set is adequate, but nothing special...