TAME.TAME.
TAME., the Blind Pug Arts Collective’s entry in the mandatory “based on Shakespeare” Fringe category, uses The Taming of the Shrew for a jumping off point. Through a filter of southern Gothicism and a healthy peppering of Sylvia Plath, the production arrives, in equal parts entertaining and disturbing, at something closer to a southern-drenched Clockwork Orange than anything penned by Shakespeare.
After meeting with tragedy on her escape to New York City, the wild Cat (Haely Jardas) comes back in 1960s Louisiana to her family, which rightly recognizes her as a woman in desperate need of help. She’s picked up an addiction to drinking and some “little white pills” that make her forget and numb her from her own emotions. Her milquetoast momma (Ali Olivier-Kruger), southern belle sister (Paige O’Malley), and domineering daddy (Deryl Davis) decide to enlist the help of local minister Patrick (Henry LaGue) to tame her.
The Taming of the Shrew has been updated and modernized many times before, once as a lighthearted teen comedy (10 Things I Hate About You) and once as an equally lighthearted musical (Kiss Me Kate). In almost any iteration, Kat/Kate/Cat/Katherina is a wild woman who can only be made polite and graceful by falling in love with a man. TAME.’s playwright Jonelle Walker finds that prospect more horrifying than comedic, and by the end of the play it’d be hard not to agree with her. Cat is mercilessly broken and broken in by a masochistic Patrick, who wears an unrelentingly seraphic and righteous expression as he beats her, which director Medha Marsten cannily punctuates with a recording of Plath’s “Daddy”. The end result is a ghastly but captivating twist on the classic comedy bound to leave its audience with chills.
TAME. is playing at Gearbox near Fort Fringe. Remaining performances are:
Saturday, July 19 at 8:45 p.m.
Friday, July 25 at 8:15 p.m.
Oh, What Can’t a Woman Do?
Oh, What Can’t A Woman Do?
Oh, What Can’t a Woman Do? is another feminist Fringe labor of love, this time in the form of a one-woman show exploring the life of 16th Century Italian actress Isabella Andreini, whose importance to the development of comedic theater is impressive. With her comedic troupe Compangnia dei Comici Gelosi she invented character tropes still used today, and her work is especially impressive for being produced in an era when women were not thought to be useful for much more than producing children. It’s easy to see why playwright and performer Hilary Morrow became captivated by her story.
In the show’s program, director Cara Gabriel outlines its evolution, noting many rewrites focusing on reimagining Andreini’s biography to produce a dramatic idea of the character. Morrow brings her cherished character to life with grace and obvious enthusiasm, but the production is unfortunately still in need of a few more dramatic rewrites. Morrow lovingly charts Andreini’s rise to prominence and attempts to cast her as a sort of feminist hero, but the play is ultimately lacking in any real dramatic tension for Andreini to overcome. The only real obstacle for any goal she sets for herself—writing a play—comes in the form of her lover who suggests she just focus on acting. He is immediately won over one scene later, as he reads her play and loves it. The rest of her goals, both vaguely feminist and definitely conservative (falling in love, marrying, raising seven children), are accomplished without anything really standing in her way. In this sense, the answer to the question posed by the title of the play might as well be “Whatever she wants, as long as no one stops her” which is hardly cutting edge feminism. While the play shines as a labor of love, asking an audience to sit through an hour lacking in dramatic tension in an un-air conditioned room is a bit much—even by Fringe standards.
Oh, What Can’t a Woman Do? runs at the Bedroom at Fort Fringe. Remaining performances are:
Saturday, July 19 at 6:45 p.m.
Thursday, July 24 at 10 p.m.
Sunday, July 27 at 5:15 p.m.
