The Taming of the Shrew: The Oxford University Dramatic Society. Magdalen College, Oxford, and touring (From The Oxford Times)

The Taming of the Shrew: The Oxford University Dramatic Society. Magdalen College, Oxford, and touring

9:56am Friday 23rd July 2010 in

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This OUDS show travels shortly to Japan, continuing a touring link to a foreign country established 13 years ago On the assumption that most things Shakespearean go down well anywhere in the world, it’s a certainty that audiences at two Tokyo theatres won’t be disappointed by this sturdy student production.

Hurrying back from the East, we land in the President’s Garden in Magdalen College – a beautiful venue – and thence immediately to Padua to enjoy the excruciating tale of Petruchio (Jacob Taee) wearing down the Katherine of Ed Pearce in one of Shakespeare’s most verbose plays.

Kate is, of course, “this fiend of Hell” and “Katherine the Cursed”. No one is going to be able to marry her sweet younger sister Bianca until the sullen one is taken off her father’s hands. The whole thing is so non PC that the audience just has to revel in that fact and see where the Bard takes matters. And, although the central idea is simple enough, a stage direction in a modern text of the play tells of the complications he created: “Enter Gremio, with Lucentio, disguised as Cambio, in the habit of a mean man; Petruchio, with Hortensio disguised as Licio; and Tranio, disguised as Lucientio…”.

The play is overwritten, but this OUDS company fights the plot successfully. After a slow start, Tace does well and, while Pearce could actually be more shrewish at the start, she mellows engagingly. From the cast, I would also pick out Lewis Godfrey’s Hortensio and Chris Greenwood as a splendidly broad Grumio.

The subtlest acting comes from the other pair of lovers: Lucentio (Jake Robertson) and Roseanna Frascona’s Bianca. I see that Robertson is taking on the towering role of Atahualpa in a Playhouse production of “The Royal Hunt of the Sun” in October, which should be an occasion.

This is an aspirational production of “Shrew” and it is excellent to see an OUDS ensemble in such fine fettle.