What has gender-blind roles, a bee suit, and an early 1900s twist? This year’s annual production of Shakespeare in the Park.
“The Taming of the Shrew” is the kick-off production of Duzer Du, DePauw University’s chapter of Alpha Psi Omega, a National Theatre Honor Society.
The play will be directed by senior Andrew Smith, who has been directing on and off throughout his time at DePauw. His zeal for directing started with Insomniac Theatre. “I usually direct for Insomniac Theatre, our 24-hour theatre festival,” Smith said. “I was also on the directing team for Shakespeare In the School’s program my sophomore year.”
When asked about why he chose to do this specific Shakespeare play, Smith said, “Somebody suggested ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ to me because originally, I was going to do ‘The Tempest.’” After reading it over, Smith had the idea of tweaking the text slightly to help it relate more to modern day. “Shakespeare’s pretty flexible and a lot of theatre company’s will take a lot of approaches to Shakespeare,” Smith told The DePauw. Smith himself chose to take a 1920s to 1940s modernist approach.
Smith’s interpretation caught the attention of sophomore Jillian Lawrence, who plays Baptista. “When I heard that the casting was going to be gender blind,” Lawrence said, “I figured it would be a really interesting interpretation to switch up those gender roles.”
According to Lawrence, the play has a reputation historically for being misogynistic, but this production team hopes to change that reputation. “The way that the original manuscript approaches women is that they’re something to be controlled and managed,” Lawrence said. She elaborated by saying that “if [women] do have some sort of spirit and rebel, that’s something to be squashed, and I think that we attempt to challenge that.”
“The Taming of the Shrew” focuses on Katherine, the shrew, who is prone to violence and harsh words. Junior Sabrina Straessle plays Petruccio, the gentleman who's able to tame the shrew. Straessle said, “In the play, I basically starve her and drive her crazy until she starts to obey me, but we’re trying to do it sarcastically to kind of show women’s power.”
Casting for the play occurred in the spring before the end of the semester. “We send them their scripts over the summer after they’ve been cast in the spring,” said Smith. He had the cast learn their lines over the summer so they could begin immediately once fall semester started.
Being able to come back before classes gives the cast the opportunity to get to know each other and lessen stress. Straessle was happy for the early start. “It is really hard to memorize your lines when you don’t have everyone around to run them with you constantly,” Straessle said.
The performance will be Friday in Theta Gardens outside the GCPA at 7:30 p.m. There will be a free barbecue beforehand at 6:30 p.m.
