My Review

The Taming of the Shrew

Yesterday I attended a play by William Shakespeare called, “The Taming of the Shrew.”

The play is about Baptista Minola and his two daughters, Katharina and Bianca. Bianca, the younger sister, is the prettiest and the one every guy wants. She has found a lover and wants to get married. However, Baptista will not let Bianca get married until Katharina (Kate) is wed. The trouble is that Kate is a very sharp tongued woman, or shrew, and scares men away. So a plan is formed to find Kate a husband so Bianca and her lover, Lucentio can be wed. The story ends with a happily married and “tamed” Kate.

The play was adapted and directed by Donald Ray Schwartz, whom I thought did an excellent job with the play and incorporating some more up-to-date humor. For example, in one scene Kate was choosing a hat and of the hat selection was an Orioles baseball cap and a Baltimore Ravens helmet which she made a few comments about.

The costumes were designed by James J. Fasching. He did a great job matching fabrics and colors to each character. Each costume matched the characters personality. Also, knowing that different colors depict different personalities helped give me some insight to what I was about to experience.

Like most of Shakespeare's’ play’s, I found it a little difficult to follow and comprehend the Old English. I must give a lot of credit to the actors who did a fantastic job with it. I can only imagine how long it took to memorize those lines. I did notice that even where I sat, in the second row, that at parts it was hard to hear what an actor was saying. Other than volume, I think overall the speech aspect of the play was great.

Congrats to everyone on a great performance.