Kiss me, Kate, ah go on, go on, go on, go on

Colin Murphy enjoys Rough Magic's Irish take on The Taming of the Shrew Rough Magic's new production is a romantic comedy about courting and marriage set in the west of Ireland. It is written in a beautiful and very funny Hiberno English and is replete with the stock characters and set pieces of Irish comedy. The twee plot is Boucicault, the arch social observation is John B Keane (or Roddy Doyle), the grotesque comedy is Martin McDonagh. And like the latter, the playwright is English. Lynne Parker has taken Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and, without apparently altering a word, found an inflexion and rhythm – as well as a setting and thematic interpretation – that makes the play seem Irish, albeit outlandlishly so. The result, for the most part, is a success, a vibrant and very funny production that's laced with a good measure of social satire.
The title of the play is misleading. It's not really about the Shrew, the harridan of an older sister whose single status is getting in the way of her beautiful younger sister's prospects. Though often used as a star vehicle for strong female leads – in this case, Pauline McLynn – the Shrew in fact has little to do throughout, other than be shrewish. As Pauline McLynn said in a recent Village interview, there's more said about her than by her.
The Shrew is not so much a character as a dramatic conceit, a function of the plot: Bianca, her younger sister, is being courted by three suitors. But their father won't entertain any of them until his wretched older daughter is off his hands. So the suitors need to find someone to woo Kate, the Shrew. Enter Petruchio, a swaggering Shakespearian Tony Soprano, all belly and braggadocio, who is less interested in Kate's personality than he is in her substantial dowry.
There are three key stages to the plot: the wooing of Kate by Petruchio, the competition for Bianca once Kate is out of the way, and the denouement, when Kate, now tamed, gives the other women a lesson in matrimonial duty. Only in the last of these – which is basically the last scene – does Kate actually do anything, and both director Lynne Parker and Pauline McLynn enjoy milking this scene for what it's worth.
Till then, McLynn's Shrew is predictable and rather bland. Indeed, the character could simply be mapped on a chart of shrewishness: starting off at the peak and gradually dropping till she is socially acceptable. There's not much else going on, and Parker and McLynn rely on exaggerating and forcing the character for comic impact.
Though the comic potential in the production is obvious from the off, in the combination of Shakespeare with thick country accents and characterisations, much of the first half drags. The music, by Cathal Synnott, intrudes erratically, and both it and the echoing footsteps on Monica Frawley's beautifully tiled floor threaten to drown out the actors. The pace is too slow, the actors too deferential to the plot and to the verse. This is opening night and, as befits a comedy, they are seeking out the laughs, testing their characterisations and comic tics.
By the second half, both the cast and audience are warmed up, and the play takes off. The result is a pacey, irreverent production that provokes some belly laughs and a good deal of chuckling, and contains some fabulous (and ribald) insights into the language and the play.
For the most part, the play has less to do with taming the Shrew than with the standard Shakespearian comic devices of concealed identity and cross purposes. Various characters dress up as other characters in order to get closer to the beautiful Bianca and win her hand in marriage. Actors enjoy nothing better than playing characters disguising themselves (two roles in one, basically), and they do it here with panache.
Driving the production is Owen Roe as Petruchio. Alarmingly, for someone tasked with playing a West-of-Ireland, Shakespearian Tony Soprano, he is totally at home in his character. His ease with the verse and his consummate command of his character set the tone for the production and help to bring it down from the occasionally hysterical comedy of some of the rest of the cast.
Once Petruchio has his Kate, he must set about taming her. Faced with the sole attentions of Petruchio, McLynn finally has something to act off, rather than just a character description. Her performance grows as a result, and Kate becomes more compelling. The relationship between Petruchio and Kate develops almost at odds with the dialogue between them, as McLynn and Roe layer it with sideways glances, arched eyebrows and both slapstick and sexual tension.
By the time they return to town for the wedding banquet for Lucentio and Bianca, the final scene, the Shrew has been tamed, but in a very ambigious, and Irish, manner. Kate will come to Petruchio's call, but the looks she gives him, the tone of her voice and the deftness with which the couple complement each other suggest their relationship is neither that simple, nor that unequal.
This final scene is masterful. It is the classic Irish wedding, sodden in alcohol and marred by embarrassing speeches. The bride, Bianca, is rightly the centre of attention, but for the wrong reasons: as the play winds its way to a largely rhetorical climax, Simone Kirby as Bianca winds herself around a succession of the male guests, gives a hilarious drunken oration, and vomits in a corner. Lynne Parker succeeds in this scene with both the dialogue and the unspoken: the drunken wedding guests find comic nuances in the verse that might otherwise fall flat, and Kate's closing words as the dutiful wife are cloaked in knowing complicity with her scheming husband. Around them, the scene is played out with both nostalgic observation and satirical edge: the couple dancing, the old man slumped in the corner, the glowering father, the spontaneous kisses all bring a further layer of both comedy and drama to this production.
∏More The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare, presented by Rough Magic at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin 2. 7.30pm nightly until 25 March; matinees Mondays. Booking 01 881 9613/14. www.project.ie