Lenox — No one ever accused Nicole Ricciardi of being a timid theatre director. Last year, at Shakespeare & Company, she and actors Tod Randolf and Bridget Sarancino gave us a brilliant and searing “The How and the Why.” This year, in the midst of one of the most surprising and disturbing presidential election seasons ever recorded, she and three New York actors (Maddie Jo Landers, Tangela Large, and Lucy Lavely) are bringing Lauren Gunderson’s “The Taming,” a Red State/Blue State romp to our region for the first time.
In an interview last week, Ricciardi mused over the fact that Gunderson is clear that she is not a fan of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” yet she uses it as a launch pad for “The Taming,” particularly its play with sexuality, and its wild physical comedy. Shakespeare lovers will recognize the characters’ names (Bianca and Katherine, and Patricia for Petruchio). And of course, there are the animals! But the director advised me not to spend time looking for other links. This satire meets us in the sociopolitical here and now, challenging our preconceptions, knocking the laughter out of our bodies as it knocks down mental and psychological walls.
The first scene in an Atlanta hotel room shows us a locked-in beauty queen, a hide-bound, overworked Senator’s assistant, and a cranky liberal activist and blogger. All hell breaks loose. Then, in a seeming blink, we are transported to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The three actors, all women, play eight roles, and three additional off-stage voices. Three of their characters are men: Charles Pickney of South Carolina, and James Madison and George Washington of Virginia. Among verbal jousts and pillow fights, threats and bargains lurk school civics lessons in dazzling new light. We see, for example, that the Electoral College was deliberately put in the Constitution because it is undemocratic. We’re reminded that only property-owning, white men were originally permitted to vote. By the time “The Taming” travels to the Miss Georgia Pageant, the audience is ready to look into Gunderson’s version of the future.
The play highlights differences and animosities among the founders, their worries that the new system they were bringing into being might not even last a generation, and their belief that the Constitution should be revised by amendments and future constitutional conventions. The founders themselves were anything but reverent about the Constitution; they craved opposition and dissent to ensure a vibrant, healthy republic. “If a majority of us don’t understand the process of our government, it’s never going to improve,” says the director. She and Gunderson want laughter to disarm us, to remind us of the constant limitations of extreme partisanship. While noting the necessity of compromise to get things done, it recognizes its pitfalls and unintended consequences. Nobody’s “sacred cow” is sacred.
One of the sly pleasures of “The Taming” is watching its female characters grow wiser and stronger before our eyes. Katherine, for example, begins by being an unrecognized, crabby assistant, totally defined by and bitter about her job, and ends as a fully realized human being. “The Taming” premiered in San Francisco in 2013, making it prescient for today’s nearly unprecedented electoral competition. Interestingly, its sexual and gender givens would have been remarkable ten years ago, but emerge here as simple realities—so accepted that they can be laughed at. Nicole Ricciardi smiles at the end of our meeting. “This is the hardest play I’ve done so far,” she says. “And it’s only funny because it’s true.” She shakes her head, and matter-of-factly goes back to her cutting edge work.
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“The Taming” is in previews this week at The Bernstein Theatre at Shakespeare and Company. It opens on Saturday, June 4th at 7:30 and runs through July 30th. Tickets are available through the Berkshire Edge calendar, at the Shakespeare & Company Box Office at 70 Kemble Street, Lenox, Mass., by phone at 413-637-3353, and online at Shakespeare.org.
