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Butler Theatre Offers a New Take on Shakespeare’s "The Taming of the Shrew"
from: www.butler.edu
Butler Theatre offers a new take on a classic Shakespearean comedy when Professor Diane Timmerman directs "The Taming of the Shrew" Nov. 30 through Dec. 11 at the Lilly Studio Theatre.
Show times are 8 p.m. Nov. 30-Dec. 3 and Dec. 7-10, and 2 p.m. Dec. 4 and 11. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for students. They’re available by calling (317) 940-9247 or online at
http://www.butler.edu/theatre/current.aspx.
Timmerman sets her 90-minute adaptation in the 1980s -- a decade of excess that she feels mirrors the setting of this early Shakespeare comedy.
"I wanted to do something contemporary, and I thought about the psychedelic ’60s," she says. "But the style then was a little too good, the lines were a little too clean. I thought the excessive ’80s, with big hair and bad clothing, was perfect because I think the play is about a shallow, slick, surface-oriented society and two people who break through that."
She’s talking about Kate, the shrew, and Petruccio, her money-hungry suitor, who end up learning lessons from each other about love and money. "In the midst of all this shallowness, they find -- with great difficulty and through some struggle -- an authenticity that does not exist in the society around them," she says.
Timmerman augments the production with 1980s music by JOAN JETT, Cyndi Lauper and Talking Heads, Sarah Conte’s colorful costumes and a show-ending dance choreographed by Associate Professor of Dance Cynthia Pratt to the Huey Lewis song "The Power of Love."
She’s staging this production in the round -- "I felt the characters themselves would be the scenery" -- and having some fun with the actor-audience relationship.
"We’re having the characters relate directly to the audience quite often," Timmerman says. "Most people agree that Shakespeare’s soliloquies are to be shared with the audience and even a more ‘traditional’ production will have the actors speaking directly to the audience during a soliloquy. But many people also believe that in Shakespeare’s time a larger percentage of the play was taken directly to the audience, even intimate scenes between two characters. So we’re doing a lot of that."
In staging "Shrew," Butler Theatre also is taking the time to celebrate its history. The department will hold its first-ever reunion on Dec. 3 with a reception before the show and a party afterward. A special invitation has been extended to the participants of the 1996 production of "Shrew" that Timmerman directed.
That one, "a lovely production," was set in the Renaissance era. But no matter when "Shrew" is set, "It’s a very accessible and fun Shakespeare play," Timmerman says.
"I’m hoping people who love Shakespeare will come to it and enjoy it, and I’m also particularly hoping that students from Butler or other younger people in the area who haven’t been acquainted with Shakespeare will come because I really think they’ll enjoy the play and hopefully discover that they love Shakespeare."
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