‘Shrew!’ flips a problematic play on its head

By Richard Chang

March 15, 2018 3:50 PM PT

While it was popular during its time, and has been revived through the ages with stage and film adaptations and reinterpretations, “The Taming of the Shrew” is practically unpresentable in its original form onstage today.

William Shakespeare’s late 16th century comedy details the courtship, or “taming,” of an opinionated, headstrong woman, or shrew, and her transformation into an obedient, docile bride. For contemporary audiences, the abuse and sexism within the text are considered far too patriarchal and misogynistic for those up to speed with the #MeToo or #TimesUp movements, or even those who value common decency.

That’s why playwright Amy Freed has flipped the classic on its head.

Starting with previews March 24 through 29 at South Coast Repertory, and continuing March 31 through April 21, Freed’s world premiere of “Shrew!” re-imagines the Bard’s play and explores main characters Katherine and Petruchio’s histories.

“The Kate in this version has a resonance, with not just another character but also with contemporary women in a much more recognizable way,” said Freed, an award-winning playwright who has worked with SCR at least six times before. Her last play at the Costa Mesa theater was 2017’s “The Monster Builder,” directed by Art Manke, who’s also directing “Shrew!”

Freed says she’s really interested in theater’s long, complicated history, even when it proves to be problematic.

“The question is, ‘How do we engage with our classics (when they’re flawed)? Do we just throw them overboard?’ We can’t just present them and not acknowledge the pain that some of them have caused. How do we go forward artistically, without obliterating our history?”

Freed’s solution is the creative rewrite.

In “Shrew!,” Katherine, or Kate, doubles as a writer who’s reworking a text she finds disagreeable. She’s also negotiating her way through the constraints of 16th century European society and trying to find equal standing with men.

Petruchio is still a bit rough around the edges, but in this play he’s a man with some more depth of feeling and sensitivity, and less braggadocio.

“This version really fulfills what Shakespeare was indicating with Petruchio,” said Freed, a San Francisco resident and an artist-in-residence at Stanford University. “He was a man so unconventional in his own day, looking for a woman unconventional in her day.”

For director Manke, “Shrew!” is another collaboration with longtime friend and colleague Freed. The two met years ago when they were graduate students in acting at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco.

“Amy really makes it a love story for our times, but retains the Elizabethan setting and era,” Manke said. “Amy has substituted plot points for those points of abuse and misogyny, and flopped it 180 degrees. Kate is really a modern woman, trapped in a Renaissance world.”

“Shrew!” is also serving as an anchor production of SCR’s 2018 Pacific Playwrights Festival, which will enjoy its 21st anniversary this spring. For Freed, working with SCR over the years has “meant a great deal in my career.”

“To have an ongoing relationship with a major theater — it’s extremely unusual,” said the Pulitzer Prize finalist for her play “Freedomland,” which premiered at SCR in 1997. She also received the Joseph Kesselring Award and the Helen Hayes/Charles MacArthur Award for outstanding new play for “The Psychic Life of Savages” (1995).

“I feel very, very fortunate. It’s a matter of chance and luck that you make that kind of artistic connection with a theater,” she said. “There’s a wonderful acting community at SCR, in addition to other kinds of support. It’s extremely valuable for developing — not just getting productions done — but it develops how you think, discovering the tools of a particular theater and what a community can offer.”