Summary 
Overproduced wild-west version of The Taming of the Shrew, with bloated cartoons for supporting characters overwhelming the titular battle of wills. A spitting and violent Kate rather than a clever shrew is unattractive and lacks chemistry with a Clint Eastwood-like Petruchio. An overblown disappointment, with talented performers overshadowed by schtick.
Design
Directed by Miles Potter. Designed by Patrick Clark. Lights by Steven Hawkins. Sound by Jim Neil. Compositions by Marc Desormeaux. Choreographed by John Broome.
Cast
Graham Abbey (Petruchio), Seana McKenna (Katherina), Paul Soles (Baptista), Deborah Hay (Bianca), Donald Carrier (Hortensio), Brad Rudy (Gremio), Jonathan Goad (Tranio), Wayne Best (Grumio), Aaron Franks (Curtis).
Analysis
Miles Potter's staging of The Taming of the Shrew is wildly uneven, an English play from the 1590s set within an 1880s American wild-west theme as derived from the Italian spaghetti-western movies of the 1960s, and produced by the Canadian Stratford Festival in 2003. Potter overdoses the play with adrenalin and slapstick, elevating peripheral characters to scenery-chewing cartoons, and the western-film effects seem more Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles than Clint Eastwood in The Good the Bad and the Ugly. The comic excesses initially entertain, but the core conflict between Petruchio and Katherina lacks appropriate focus, and as the show reaches its third hour, the unremitting sideshow clowning becomes less an entertainment, more a distraction and finally an irritant.
The 1880s wild-west theme works well, with American frontiersmen struggling to tame the wild west just as Petruchio struggles to "tame" the wildcat Katherina. Potter's production begins without the Christopher Sly induction, set at Padua City by its train station, with whistles, chugging engine noises, and blasts of steam. Church bells toll as five couples begin a square dance, twirling across the stage while they whoop and shout. Seana McKenna's over-violent and mean-spirited Kate muscles past a crowd of spectators on the balcony to disrupt the festivities, knocking one man's hat off with his own walking stick, then using the stick to rap the knuckles of another man who has fled over the balcony railing, sending him sprawling to the stage. After Kate knocks a man down the stairs, she is manhandled to stage left, kicking her feet beneath her. She glares at one captor and spits at another, then imitates the high-pitched squeal of Bianca before a punch to the solar plexus doubles over her sister's suitor.
Potter presents several of the lesser characters with ample detail, such as Hortensio in a suit and bowler hat, Hispanic Tranio in sombrero and scarf (his "shipments" sound like "chipmunks"), and dapper Baptista in a long-tailed white suit. Gremio and Grumio, however, are overplayed cartoons, and they distract from the main action of the play by stealing scenes that should not be stolen. Gremio, a hunched old man with gray mutton chops, wears a top hat and wields a cane, and he takes absurd baby steps and sputters almost unintelligibly; Grumio, a bow-legged, tobacco-spitting Walter Brennan-type, constantly bulges his eyes, flicks his tongue, and hitches his pants in a portrayal that would be amusing if kept minimal.
Graham Abbey as Petruchio is quite good in a lead role made small. He arrives 1.2 squinting like Clint Eastwood, unshaven and gnawing a cheroot, while spaghetti-western guitar music plays. He flashes his revolvers to frighten people from his path, and he fires shots at Grumio's feet to make the servant dance. The piano player halts as Petruchio swaggers into a smoky saloon, a brothel visible upstairs in the balcony. Petruchio silently advises a poker player, then threatens to draw his six-guns so he can steal the winnings. In a 2.1 counterpoint, Kate drops her washboard and hog-ties Bianca to a bench with a laundry line, then slaps her bottom. When Baptista intervenes, Bianca escapes in a waddle while straddling the small bench.
Potter's overblown production improves when focused upon Kate and Petruchio. When Hortensio staggers onto the balcony with the lute broken over his head, Abbey's wry "it is a lusty wench," spoken in an aside to the audience, draws a laugh, and the ensuing encounter is the best scene of the production. Petruchio, awaiting Kate, draws a revolver for protection, but when she arrives, they gaze at each other like when Romeo first sees Juliet. But taming Kate seems akin to busting a bronco, and she crawls between Petruchio's legs and throws wild hay-maker punches. When Baptista arrives, she disarms Petruchio and waves the revolver as everyone but Petruchio ducks and scatters, and when he comments "see how much she loves me," she breaks a chair across his back and dumps a laundry basket over his head. At "give me thy hand" she grabs Petruchio's thumb and twists, then bites his neck and knees him in the groin, and at "kiss me, Kate," she simply spits on him.
On their wedding day, Abbey's Petruchio arrives wearing a top hat, two different boots, and a purple and pink bodice. When Petruchio tosses Kate over his shoulder and carries her from the wedding party, Baptista's droll remark about "a couple of quiet ones" brings interval. Music embellishes a production not in need of further distraction, with Hortensio strumming My Darling Clementine during 3.1 on his banjo, the 3.2 wedding band featuring trumpets, a banjo and drums in the balcony, and guitar strums enhancing the many scene changes.
Juvenile comedy continues during the second act, which begins with Curtis relieving himself in a wood-burning stove. He wipes his hands on laundry hung from a line as the stove shudders and blows an enormous smoke ring. Petruchio must tame even his own men, spoiling their 4.1 ambush by getting the drop on them from the balcony as Grumio holds a knife to one man's throat. Violence is common and loyalty is rare in the wild west, so a true union between Petruchio and Kate seems an improbability. The couple reaches an understanding after the 4.5 showdown on the road. A tumbleweed blows across the stage and a crow caws as they face each other and square off like gunslingers: "I know it is the moon." McKenna's Kate seems to catch onto Petruchio's game, playing with the old man ("fair virgin") by tying a kerchief with feminine flair around his head.
Attempts at amusing touches abound - Petruchio catches a fly over Grumio's head; at Hortensio's intention to "read in poetry" everyone in the saloon spits on the floor; an out of breath Pony Express deliveryman sputters in 4.5 - but cross the border to the excessive. Once Petruchio and Kate finally kiss - with Grumio a lizard-like distraction right next to them, tongue flicking and eyes bulging - a lively square-dance ensues and the production concludes with the 5.2 banquet. The stage fills with hyperactive characters as well as the wedded couples, and Bianca swoons drunkenly in her chair. After the "test," Kate removes her evening gloves and kneels, her hand on the stage for Petruchio's boot. Petruchio instead kneels before her, and they kiss and stand as one. Although overshadowed by the minor characters, Petruchio and Kate begin a tender slow dance, the others follow, and the at times punishing production finally concludes.
Note: A version of this article was edited and published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol.22, No.1, Spring 2004.