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We are excited to announce The Cutting Ball Theater’s upcoming production of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Artistic Director Rob Melrose, at Magic Theatre in San Francisco.
 Pictured: (foreground) Paige Rogers and David Sinaiko (background left to right) Elena Scott, Cat Lum, Felicia Benefield, Chad Deverman, David Wesley Skillman, and Jason Wong |
The Cutting Ball’s production of Shrew emphasizes the play’s induction (the first two scenes), which Melrose sets in San Francisco. These first two scenes are often cut from the production altogether. Rather than the modernist tendency to focus on the taming of the shrew plot and reinterpreting the anti-feminist theme, we have presented the shrew story as a play-within-a-play.
Shakespeare’s induction begins with Christopher Sly (David Sinaiko), a drunkard. He is found passed out just outside a bar (placed here in the Mission District) by a rich Lord (Paige Rogers) and her entourage. As a practical joke, the Lord decides to take Sly home and trick him into believing that he is a gentleman of great wealth who has suffered dementia for the past fifteen years. The audience watches Sly slowly begin to doubt his own sense of self and ultimately adopt the Lord and entourage’s perception of him.
 Research Photo by Director Rob Melrose: San Francisco, Folsom St. Leather Fair |
A troupe of players arrive and are employed by the Lord to stage a comedy for the baffled Sly. While the play is meant to entertain him, it is evident that it also serves as a learning tool. The essence of the play they stage is the story of how a woman’s unruly behavior – which is not all that dissimilar to that of Sly, a belligerent drunkard – is sobered or “tamed”.
The play-within-a-play structure is a Shakespearean hallmark. A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Hamlet are two examples of how this device – meta-theater – is used. In the case of Shrew, the audience’s experience of the taming plot is colored by Sly’s own perception of it; he is, after all, the primary audience.
By framing the famous breaking of Kate story with the induction, Melrose enables his audience to move beyond an ethical focus on contemporary gender politics to explore identity and self-perception instead.
 Research Photo by Director Rob Melrose: San Francisco, Folsom St. Leather Fair |
One of the inspirations behind this concept, Melrose explains, is “Erving Goffman’s work The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Goffman’s idea is that we don’t have one true self, but rather many selves and that they are changeable depending on our environment.” Melrose has applied Goffman’s sociological insight – that people behave or “perform” in certain social situations in order to present themselves a particular way to others – to theater and the ways in which actors attempt to control the audience’s impression of a character.
Audiences are set up to watch the actors take on the characters within the shrew story, but also the shrew story itself is rich with characters that swap or create false identities. For example, Lucentio poses as Cambio, Tranio as Lucentio, the Pendant as Vincentio. Illusion is layered on top of illusion. This behavior only reiterates how fluid personalities actually are and that personality is dependent on the way one is perceived and treated.
 Research Photo by Director Rob Melrose: San Francisco, Folsom St. Leather Fair |
By setting the induction in San Francisco and specifically in an underground world of sexual fetishism, Melrose is able to use location to embody the changeability of identity and reflect upon expressions of gender. The result is an invitation to the resident San Francisco audience member to examine one’s own perception of self and custom. Woven throughout the production – as interludes between various scenes – the music and dance sequences create an atmosphere of subculture characteristic of San Francisco. Even Melrose’s casting choices reflect the city’s diversity. This production explores San Francisco as much as it does The Taming of the Shrew.
While our production joins this tradition of drawing upon the induction and use of commedia stock characters, Melrose deepens the audience’s experience by inviting Sly and the Lord to take part in the secondary play. In past productions Sly remains on the side watching the entire play, or at some point dissolves as the play progresses. In this case, Sly is cast by the players as Petruchio and the Lord as Kate. The result is that the real world power dynamic – a manipulative lord controlling the impressions of a poor drunkard – is inverted. Sly, as Petruchio, is now master over the Lord, as Kate. “In the San Francisco induction, Rogers will have a high status to Sinaiko’s low,” explains Melrose, “While in the play world of Padua their status will be reversed, especially after the wedding.”
 Research Photo by Director Rob Melrose: Padua, Italy |
This framework allows the characters in the induction to inform the characters in the shrew story. As a result, Melrose manages to unify the play’s three plots – the duping of Sly, the wooing of Bianca, and the taming of Kate – as well as raise questions about gender, sexuality, and class. The ultimate effect is a production that moves beyond material matters to a more metaphysical exploration of identity. Melrose’s approach is a manifold achievement. It takes advantage of Shrew’s intrinsic comedy, reminding audiences of the pleasure of slapstick humor, while also making a statement about self-perception and the power of theatrical illusion. Most of all it recalls the theater’s very roots: the play as a learning device.
 Research Photo by Director Rob Melrose: Padua, Italy |
© 2008 The Cutting Ball Theater |