Directors Notes

by Rob Melrose, director of The Taming of the Shrew

Paige Rogers in The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare

One of the theater’s greatest advantages is its ability to speak to a specific audience in a specific time. Our production of The Taming of the Shrew explores the city of San Francisco as much as it does Shakespeare’s play and one of my main goals was to capture the rich diversity, the bold sexuality, and adventurous spirit of our town.

The production fuses two passions of mine: commedia dell’arte and hip hop dance. Paige (who plays Kate in our production) and I studied commedia dell’arte this summer in Italy with master teacher Antonio Fava. It was wonderful to go to the roots of this rich art form that spawned slapstick comedy, sitcoms, and cartoons. Growing up, Paige and I were addicted to the television show “In Living Color”. The comedy was over the top, smart, and satirical. We particularly loved “The Fly Girls” (which is where Rose Perez and Jennifer Lopez got their start) who would dance in between each sketch. I always thought it would be fun to do a Shakespearean Comedy with our own set of fly girls, giving Shakespeare’s plays life in a modern, populist spirit.

Research Photo by Director Rob Melrose: San Francisco, Folsom St. Leather Fair

The Taming of the Shrew has a rich production history. For centuries productions have wrestled with the play’s troublesome attitude towards women. On one hand, the strongest most spirited character in the play is wild Kate, but on the other hand, the play seems to advocate “taming” her wildness. Our production takes advantage of the fact that The Taming of the Shrew is actually a play within a play. Shakespeare wrote an often cut two scene prologue, or induction, for the play in which a wealthy Lord finds a poor drunk named Christopher Sly passed out on the street and decides to play a little trick on him. The Lord dresses Sly up as a rich person and places him in a wealthy home for the purpose of convincing Sly that his life as a poor drunk was just a dream and that in actuality, he is quite well off and powerful.

Research Photo by Director Rob Melrose: San Francisco, Folsom St. Leather Fair

Part of the way the Lord entertains the drunk is by hiring a troop of actors to put on a five-act play for Sly entitled, you guessed it, The Taming of the Shrew. In our production, the world of this prologue/induction is sexually liberated contemporary San Francisco. A wide variety of San Franciscans take on different roles in the play, oftentimes acting out a part against their own true character: most significantly our Lord (played by Paige Rogers) acts out the role of Kate the shrew and our drunken Sly (played by David Sinaiko) acts out the role of the husband who tames her. In this one gesture, identities are switched and status roles are reversed.

So instead of advocating one kind of gender role over another, this production explores the multiplicity of gender roles and identities available, especially in a city such as San Francisco. As preparation, the creative team read the book “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life” by Erving Goffman. 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. This is a nice key into Shrew because most modern productions struggle so mightily against the anti-feminist theme that they end up having to play the opposite of Shakespeare’s text. We feel that Goffman’s ideas are more in line with the play and San Francisco is a wonderful place to look at the changeability of identity.

Research Photo by Director Rob Melrose: Padua, Italy