newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS — You probably know the old joke: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? One, but the bulb has to really want to change. Substitute shrew for light bulb and rogue for psychiatrist and you’ll get the point of Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre’s snappy, thoughtful and funny production of “Taming of the Shrew.”

All good storytelling concerns character transformation, or at least its possibility. However, few characters change so staggeringly as Shakespeare’s shrewish Kate. In a few short acts this fire-breathing female becomes a submissive mate.

There you have the bur under the saddle for so many critics and audience members. Our culture values personal rights so strongly we are generally appalled by Kate’s display of servitude at play’s end. Director Carrie Baker takes the misogyny head-on and comes up with surprisingly humanistic product. Baker is aided by very strong leads.

Anne Thibault’s performance of Kate charts a believable passage from harpy to helpmate. Especially impressive is her final speech — the one that prompts many to grab the nearest pitchfork and storm the set. Thibault’s Kate speaks less to her sister brides, and more to Petruchio, her partner in marriage. It is delivered in the private code married couples develop. Whatever she may pronounce, this production displays a Kate who is and will be an equal partner in marriage.

That equitable partnership wouldn’t work dramatically without Jeremy Thompson’s spirited portrayal of Petruchio, one of my favorite creations by Shakespeare. Petruchio is part fool, part rascal, but wholly wise. Thompson convincingly displays this character’s various sides. As director Baker points out in her notes, the play fairly crackles with verbal pyrotechnics when Kate and Petruchio first meet, and Thibault and Thompson keep the fireworks sizzling.

Since “Shrew” is a comedy, Shakespeare whips up a typically light and fluffy subplot, complete with disguises and wooing, ploys and counter ploys, discoveries and revelations ending in a bevy of weddings.

Hadassah R. Nelson plays Bianca, the younger sister of Kate, with saucy verve as she goads her sister in sibling rivalry or strings her various suitors along with coy looks and coquettish wags of her head.

Matthew Reckard, as the aging but wealthy Gremio, and Jon-Kiefer Browne, as the younger and craftier Hortensio, nicely portray failed suitors. Both actors play to the play’s farcical side without going overboard.

The man destined to win Bianca, Lucentio, is something of a stock character in the comedies, almost a male ingenue, and the young lover can sometimes pale in comparison with wilder and more colorful characters around him; but H. Andrew Greeley holds his own as Lucentio.

The talented Jenny Schlotfeldt portrays a trio of those scene-stealing characters: Biondo, a broadly drawn servant, the Tailor, a tradesman made dizzy by the antics of the madcap Petruchio, and a worldly widow who ends up marrying the frustrated Hortensio. Schlotfeldt makes each character distinct and vivid.

Andrew Cassel displays his considerable comic powers portraying Tranio, a servant who conceives and executes one of the subterfuges that fuel the play’s story.

Steve Mitchell turns in another strong performance playing Kate’s and Bianca’s father, Baptista. He has become the archetype of the long-suffering parent in my mind.

Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre frequently exhibits first-rate production values and “Shrew” is no exception. A parade of Theresa Reed and Renata Lively’s sumptuous costumes passes on review as the play unfolds. And John Mayer’s set nicely exploits vertical as well as horizontal space with its two floors. It allows Baker to efficiently move her actors in and out of the scenes and action.

Modern sensibilities are understandably offended by the final scene of “Shrew,” but Baker’s production demonstrates how a shift in tone can offer a richer understanding of marital partnership than a simple reading of the text provides.

Robert Hannon is a Fairbanks resident who has been involved in local theater for more than 20 years.