HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE KATE?


" U


NIVERSITY of North Carolina professor Tim Carter, author of a book


about Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1945 musical Carousel, on the show’s infamous number in which a main character defends a man’s right to hit a woman:


“It is almost impossible to rescue the show from Julie Jordan’s apparent acceptance of domestic abuse. The only sensible solution — in my view — is to accept the problem and then engage with it, rather than, say, sanitizing the work to remove the problem in the first place. Otherwise there’s no end to it."


Actress Melissa Errico, on playing Lilli Vanessi in Kiss Me, Kate in a production at Bay Street Theater:


“Immersed in the part [of Lilli Vanessi], I came to see the musical as a love song to a woman and her work. Lilli, like most other middle-aged actresses I know, longs to reconnect with her profession. With her former husband, Fred, involved with another woman, she does what all actors do — transfers her fury and fire into performance, speaking her truth through the words of her character. By her final monologue, she reclaims her power by reclaiming her identity as an artist. (Of the rear- slapping, I will add that these roles are written as two mature performers with an excess of ego and bluster, and Lilli isn’t exactly unafraid to throw things, including chairs and punches. An actress and actor keeping that in mind can play it with consensual relish.)”


"A CURIOUS EQUATION"


Director Phyllida Lloyd, on directing Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew with an all-female cast at Shakespeare in the Park:


“[T]here’s something about doing Shakespeare with a single gender, whether it is all-male or all-female that opens up certain possibilities...Petruchio behaves appallingly, and really abuses Kate by torturing her in order to force her into submission. I suppose we are able to push those themes slightly harder, and take them slightly further than maybe we would were this a man and a woman playing it. It would be maybe hard to embrace the horror of his behavior without losing complete sympathy for Petruchio. There is a curious equation by which we are able to commit quite boldly to it.”


BATTLE OF THE SEXES D


IRECTOR Lucy Bailey, who directed The Taming of the Shrew at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2012, on Petruchio’s abusive behavior toward Kate in the play:


"[The conflict between Petruchio and Kate is] all foreplay to one event, which is to get these two people into bed…[T]he play quickly becomes odd if Petruchio starts to lecture, becomes the educator, or takes any moral position. It becomes punitive, and you start to think, 'This is dead and ghastly.' It is a fantastic battle of the sexes: it's because they won't allow each other to win that the game continues."


KISS ME, KATE UPSTAGE GUIDE 15


KISS ME, KATE is far from the only show that has been revived recently that must grapple with material many find unsavory. How have others approached the challenges of these kinds of productions?


A LOVE SONG TO A WOMAN & HER WORK


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