Shrew
Adaptivity Theatre Company
Earl Arts Centre
 

If you’ve ever sat through a play and thought to yourself how differently you would behave in a situation than the characters as written, you’ll get your chance to make that a reality in Adaptivity Theatre Company’s newest interactive experience, Shrew.

An adaption of Shakespeare’s famously thorny The Taming of the Shrew, in this piece you can use your phone, your voice, or even your presence onstage to shape the production, educate the characters, and even save some of them from terrible fates.

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This is not the first play from Adaptivity that has actively encouraged audience members to use their mobile devices throughout the performance. Their first production in Launceston, an adaption of Much Ado about Nothing in 2018, featured a live-updated social media feed that audiences were free to interact with. The audience participation element of Shrew is threefold: For those less keen to draw attention to themselves, a QR code displayed during pre-show will take you to a page where you are free to make suggestions (or not) quietly and even anonymously via your phone at appropriate moments. For those who feel comfortable to engage, the cast will solicit suggestions directly from the audience, and you may respond from your seat. For those bolder still, the option is given for you to come onstage and demonstrate precisely what you would do in the situations under scrutiny.

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All of this can be very good fun, particularly when people are game enough to get themselves involved, and it is essential to understand that while yes, you are under no obligation to take part, and will most certainly not be put on the spot if you (like this writer) prefer not to do so, Shrew is a show which feeds off the energy of its audience, and you will be doing the players no good service by giving nothing back at all. There are fail-safes in place for when things are falling flat, other characters will pop up to provide example suggestions to keep things moving, but the show needs input to really soar, and once the initial awkwardness is past and the nature of the show becomes clearer, the momentum builds, and Shrew can really steam along.

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All credit to the actors, who are not only tasked with repeatedly improvising in character, no easy feat, but, when not in a scene, are seated on the stage in silence for the show’s considerable runtime, a gruelling task despite the light comedic tone of the production. Shrew is, as written and performed, very much an ensemble work, but special mention must be made of both Lee Brient and Kevin Vong, who, in a sort of dual master of ceremonies role named the Joker(s), set the boundaries of the play for the audience. Their gentle touch and good humour help ground the other actors during improvised sequences and ensure that attendees are quickly at ease with the participatory elements of the play.

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Where technical elements of the production are concerned, there is little to remark on. The actors are appropriately costumed but there is no set to speak of. Locations are signified instead by projection at the rear of the stage. The emptiness of the stage is of far less concern than one might think. It certainly proves no distraction after the opening few minutes, but the sheer amount of open space that the actors need to traverse throughout the show does little to aid the pacing, creating gaps and bleeding energy where a more focused stage design might have helped keep things tighter. Inserted songs, arranged by Karlin Love, also hinder pace. They are performed ably, but the melodies are often dirge-like and do not aid the upbeat and light-hearted tone of the rest of the show. On preview night with its small, invited audience, energy and pace were most evidently what the show needed, elements that I suspect a larger audience more prepared to engage with the material on its own terms would do much to address.

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Shrew works for almost any age, but the pared-back nature of the design makes it feel crafted to be taken to schools, and that may indeed be where a production of this nature would be most at home. The play hopes to, with you, have open discussions and examine the shortcomings of the late 16th century mindset as it applies to consent, assault, and gender roles, complete with both side talks with characters that unpack their reactions to certain scenes, and even inserted statistics on occasion. The conversation may be shaped to a degree by the attitudes of the audience, but the core message from what is quite clearly scripted can be, moment to moment, either enlightening or, at times, quite didactic.

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The ultimate result in terms of narrative is that the only taming that happens is to the play itself, and while the plot of the play proper is described and portrayed sufficiently to ensure the audience follows the action, attendees unfamiliar with The Taming of the Shrew in its entirety should be under no illusions that they will leave with a comprehensive understanding of what actually happens in the famously problematic original. Much of the play, particularly large sections of the back half, have been drastically altered in favour of examining and rerunning a few particularly thorny sequences, and while this is undeniably where the meat of the drama and the best opportunities for examination are, it can at these points feel that the production is stalled and not truly moving forward.

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So much of the narrative having been cut makes it hard to argue that the final product is very dramatically satisfying as a traditional play, many of the characters and their arcs remain unclear by the end. But, in a very real sense, they don’t need to be. The value of Shrew hangs almost entirely on its artistic device, and when fully embraced it can be both incredibly engaging as a viewer and even valuable as a learning experience. Shrew is recommended for ages 13 plus, but it is highly recommended for the teenaged crowd.

 

Get along to see it at the Earl Arts centre before it closes on the 19th.

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Review By Ryan Politis