Tron Theatre, Glasgow
Four stars
When boy meets girl in
Shakespeare’s frothy but terminally unreconstructed rom-com, the so-called happy
ending has always been at best questionable. Jo Clifford’s gender-bending new
reading of the story of how Katherina learnt to succumb to Petruchio’s will proceeds
to turn the play’s world upside down, break every rule going and run with it to
make a whirlwind piece of queer-core cabaret inspired subversion.
Here, Katherina is a
boy, a bratty swot with ideas above his station and a serious attitude problem.
Kate isn’t at all like his himbo brother Bianca, who only wants to serve the
women who run the world as they woo him into willing submission. Petruchio,
meanwhile, is a woman who, enjoying the challenge of Kate’s resistance to her
charms, is on a mission, and won’t put up with any of Kate’s nonsense, no
matter how much he refuses to put out.
Over a rollicking 75
minutes, Michael Fentiman’s co-production between the Tron and their
enterprising fellow travellers at the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff deconstructs and
reinvents Shakespeare’s original as one might with the wheel, yet, with the aid
of Claire Cage’s comic pedant, somehow manages to keep the central thrust of
the play’s story intact.
Scarlett Brookes takes
no prisoners as Petruchio, Kate is played by Matt Gavan like an indie-kid Rik
Mayall, with Francois Pandolfo a quasi-coquettish Bianca and Louise Ludgate
simply magnificent as the matriarchal Baptista. If the play’s central relationship
has a combative air, it is heightened by Madeleine Girling’s mini circus ring
styled set, while Danny Krass’ sound design is given a live kick by the musical
double act of Hannah Jarrett-Scott and Alexandria Riley.
While there is some
seriously incendiary stuff going on here concerning the rich and ever changing
tapestry of gender politics, making sex mosaics as they go, there is such an
irreverent tone at the show’s heart that it’s clear everyone is having a cross-gendered
ball.
The Herald, March 22nd 2019
ends
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