nbcnewyork.com offers their review of the Public’s Shakespeare in the Park whose season kicked off with an all-female take on “The Taming of the Shrew,” starring two exceptionally animated actresses and offering generally low-stakes direction from Phyllida Lloyd, of “Mamma Mia!” (stage and screen) and “The Iron Lady.”
Cush Jumbo, of TV’s “The Good Wife,” has the showy role of Katherina, the title “shrew,” a tantrum-throwing conniver who, as tradition has it, must be married off before suitors may vie for the hand of younger sister Bianca. Janet McTeer, a Tony winner for “A Doll’s House,” dons a butch leather jacket to woo her, as Petruchio.
Lining up a cast of women for a play that’s explicitly about men who expect obedience from their wives pretty much guarantees an interpretation dripping in irony, and that’s just what Lloyd delivers—a “Shrew” that throws into relief the silly ways that men behave. Some 16 talented actresses swagger around in Speakeasy-era wardrobe and perform with exaggerated behaviors generally associated with the less-fair sex. No one seems to be having more fun than McTeer.
To read the review in its entirety, click here. To learn how to get tickets, please go to our website.