With the famously warring couple of “The Taming of the Shrew,” William Shakespeare laid down the inspiration for hundreds of feisty fictional pairs to follow. Elizabeth and Darcy from “Pride and Prejudice,” Princess Leia and Han Solo from “Star Wars,” Maddie and David of “Moonlighting” and Lilli and Fred from “Kiss Me Kate” — the list is endless, and they all owe a debt to Kate and Petruchio.
For director Adrianne Cury, staging the potentially tricky show for Oak Park Festival Theatre means capturing the dialogue’s endlessly ingenious insults and its crackling undercurrent of sexual tension. Kate (Jhenai Mootz) and Petruchio (John Crosthwaite) unleash some of the most stinging slapdowns this side of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” But like Albee’s George and Martha, Kate and Petruchio’s insistence of mutual hatred isn’t always what it seem.
“I want people to walk away thinking, ‘Oh my God, that was as funny as anything can be.’ But I also want them to hear the beating heart at the play’s core. Through all the insults, this is a love story,” Cury says.
As love stories go, “The Taming of the Shrew” can be a major problem of a play. Kate starts out hellbent against even lowering herself to flirt with a man, much less marry one. Petruchio begins by baldly stating he’s going to marry Kate for her money — whether she likes it or not.
In the first act, Kate is banned from her home, forced to either marry Petruchio or take up residence on the streets of Padua. Her “honeymoon” is a forced march wherein she’s denied food, sleep, clothing and dignity. But a funny thing happens on the way to Petruchio’s house. Even hungry, sleepy and angry, Kate shows herself to be as wily and empowered as her seemingly loutish spouse. Their drama is a match of wits, and both of them wield words like deadly weapons. Kate is nobody’s victim. And then Shakespeare throws another loop into the tale. In the play’s infamously difficult final scene, Kate winds up — literally — kissing her husband’s feet and extolling the virtue of treating one’s husband as one’s lord, master and undeniable superior. It’s an abrupt 180-degree swivel as Kate suddenly appears to embody everything she despises about weak, man-crazed women.
“Ah yes, the final capitulation of Kate. Let’s just say I have my own ideas about that scene,” says Cury. “But here’s what I will say: She is not a subjugated female. There is a lot of game-playing. And when Kate realizes that the game is on, she decides to play it better than anyone else. She’s kind of like, ‘Oh. So we’re doing this? OK. Just you try and keep up.'”
For actor Jhenai Mootz, playing Kate is both a chance to play a role she’s been eyeing since she was around 12. “I’ve been a Shakespeare nerd for a long time,” she says. “He’s able to write these moments of absolute truth, emotions you completely recognize. His words are our stories.”
Oak Park Festival Theatre presents, ‘Taming of the Shrew’
When: July 23-Aug. 27
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Where: Austin Gardens, 167 Forest Ave., Oak Park
Tickets: $29, $24 seniors, $15 students, free children under 12
Contact: 708-445-4440; www.oakparkfestival.com