15. The Taming Of The Shrew (1973)

Those spokesmen of the aggressively feminist viewpoint who dismiss the male of the species as a chauvinistic pig would no doubt have choked on their own choler had they been foolish enough to see 'The Taming of the Shrew' by William Shakespeare in the School Hall on 30th November, 1st and 2nd December 1972.

This play, refreshingly unaware of modern trends to accord women an equal place in society, extols the ancient virtue of male dominance and the complementary need for woman to know her place. If this appears to our gentler readers as too ungenerous an introduction and too redolent of those very attitudes that have barred the path to female emancipation for far too long, then I am happy to record our great pleasure in welcoming to the cast of this production a number of young ladies from St. Mary's without whom the play would not have achieved the same distinction.

Baptista, a rich gentleman of Padua, has two daughters. The elder, Katherina, is rebellious, unloving and, alas, unloved. Bianca is sweet and charming and hotly pursued by Gremio, passing rich, if somewhat past his prime, and by Hortensio whose forays into the garden of love are gently resisted. In any case, Baptista will not bestow Bianca until he has disposed of Katherina and no one wants Katherina. No one, this is, until Petruchio arrives from Verona to seek his fortune in Padua. On hearing of Katherina's wealth, he is unmoved by tales of her shrewishness, but sets about her taming forthwith. Gremio and Hortensio take heart but unhappily for them Lucentio, son of Vincentio of Pisa and handsome withall has come to Padua with his servant Tranio and has exchanged amorous glances with their Bianca. The scenes then alternate between the taming of Katherina, the wooing of Bianca and the discountenancing of her rival suitors - elements of force mingling with innocent romance until all ends happily with Katherina making a classical statement of male superiority.

As the tamer of the shrew, Richard Avery dominated the play from the moment of his first entry. He impressed us all by the vigour of his performance, by his commanding presence and by the maturity of his acting. It was not easy to see how he could have been better and it seems safe to say that the Bard himself would have taken delight in this performance.

Katherina was played by Paula Haselock. In some ways this is a more difficult part as it involves a sudden transition from an original shrewishness to a proper wifely submissiveness. Paula gave a most convincing portrayal, displaying an ability to extract subtle emotional nuances from the text. As her first piece of serious acting this was very promising indeed.

David Asplin as Lucentio and Susan Higgins as Bianca were required to play the romantic scenes straight and could thus not depend on audience response to help them to maintain the level of their performance. However they played their parts well, giving us pleasant, quiet and uncomplicated interludes between the taming scenes and the intrigues of other characters.

Foremost of these was Clive Saunders as Tranio, the servant of Lucentio. To insinuate his master into Baptista's household where he would have opportunity for dalliance with Biana, Tranio exchanged both name and status with Lucentio. This gives the actor the chance of playing two separate parts in one play. Clive Saunders did this admirably. His affectation of noble language, accent and gesture was extremely funny and very well done, At no point did he lapse from one character into the other and when he resumed his proper station at the end of the play, the transition was faultless. He is a promising actor.

Jonathan Wolff as Gremio was also very entertaining. His mannerisms were exactly right for the part and the quality of his voice was remarkably true to the thin tones of a querulous old man. Together with his performance in a very difficult part in 'The Rivals' last year he has shown us the wide range of his acting ability.

Martin Tett as Hortensio cut a preposterous figure as another suitor of Bianca. He played his part with conviction and verve, providing an excellent foil to Lucentio's more serious suit.

Philip Dumville, whom we saw last year in the part of a testy and high spirited old man, had the mellower part of Baptista in this production. He was required to be, in turn, benign, firm and bewildered and so successful was his portrayal of the character that we found ourselves caught up in his paternal worries. This was a good mature performance.

John Williams gave an excellent account of the part of Grumio, Petruchio's cheeky and aggressive servant; and David Mercer gave a polished performance of the part of the Pedant.

Apart from the high quality of the acting of the principal players, this production was blessed by a uniformly high standard of performance by the minor characters who were too numerous to be mentioned by name. The lively production was also a personal triumph for Mr. I. D. Collyer, the producer of the play, who brought to it his usual professionalism and who is to be congratulated on making an evening to be remembered of one of Shakespeare's less inspired creations.

D. DIXON