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Posted on Wednesday, 09.02.09

THEATER REVIEW |THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

Review | 'Taming of the Shrew': Wild silliness no laughing matter

By CHRISTINE DOLEN

cdolen@MiamiHerald.com

New Theatre has become a company that takes its name literally: Under artistic director Ricky J. Martinez, the intimate Coral Gables theater has shifted its emphasis to new work, with three world premieres on its schedule for this season.

Even so, the company remains committed to an annual exploration of William Shakespeare's canon. This year's end-of-summer effort is a Commedia dell'Arte-style production of The Taming of the Shrew.

Professional productions of Shakespeare's works are rare enough in South Florida. A show staged in this classic Italian comedy style is rarer still, but director Roberto Prestigiacomo's choice makes sense.

The Taming of the Shrew takes place in Italy, where Commedia dell'Arte flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries. Its plot involves lovers, old men and crafty servants, all stock characters in improvised Commedia theater. And though Shakespeare's original has almost 30 parts, New Theatre's version demonstrates the play can be performed by 10 actors, the standard number in a Commedia company.

How much you'll enjoy New Theatre's Taming of the Shrew, however, may depend on how much you appreciate -- or can tolerate -- the relentless silliness of Commedia style.

Though sometimes covered by masks, the actors' faces are painted a doll-like white, with round crimson circles dotted on their cheeks and penciled-on black eyebrows. Wigs, from the prettily styled white one worn by Jackie Rivera's Bianca to the ratty mess Israel Garcia dons as Petruchio, work with K. Blair Brown's imaginative costumes to establish period, class and personality. Tumbling, broad clowning, bawdiness and actor-supplied sound effects lend this Shrew the feeling of a 16th century sitcom. That's not meant as a compliment.

What too often is lost in this high-energy, intensely busy production is The Taming of the Shrew.

Oh, the play pokes through, mostly when the ever-wondrous Garcia is outfoxing one and all as Petruchio. Odious as the idea of a man ``taming'' his wife seems to us in the 21st century, if you're going to play Petruchio, you do it with all the wiliness and bombast the Bard wrote into the character. Garcia is masterful, and you have to wonder what this Shrew might have been like had his cast mates risen to his level.

Certainly, Karen Garcia (no relation) doesn't come close as Katharina, aka the shrewish Kate. A beauty with a sultry voice, she spends much of the play arranging her hands into various poses, as if getting ready to vogue down a runway. Her sudden switch from harridan to subservient sweetheart isn't even vaguely believable.

Clint Hooper has a whistling, scene-stealing turn as Vincentio, the aged father of Lucentio (Joshua Horn), one of the pretty Bianca's many suitors. But such small moments of true theatrical comedy get swamped by a frenzied Commedia tidal wave.

Christine Dolen is The Miami Herald's theater critic.

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