Kiss Me, Kate! revisited

This is in response to a blog dedicated to Kiss Me, Kate! which can be found here.

First off, I agreed with most of the critic on the show. This is the first time I have seen any production of Kiss Me, Kate and can only base my observation on the Saturday's performance. I have, however, been in a production of The Taming of the Shrew. We did a gender reversed version of the show where men were cast as Kate, Bianca and the Widow. Having a man play Kate gave the end scene a much different meaning. But nevertheless, it is a difficult speech to perform - or song in the case of the musical.

Ryan Fisher as Kate, Kevin Owen as Bianca @ Theatre Erindale

In regards to Kate's final speech, it is important to understand why the play even exists. The Taming of the Shrew is a lesson to the women of Shakespeare's time. A lesson that women should be more obedient - become the woman that Kate becomes and dictates. Historically, there are accounts of women becoming more boisterous and self-minded (thanks to Elizabeth I?); therefore, so called 'behaviour' pamphlets were written to guide women to be proper at home and in public - so called lessons in what we now know as ettiquette. Would a women really behave like Kate in the last scene? Probably not, but that is what is written. She must be tamed as the title dictates. In Fletcher's Taming of the Tamer (also known as The Tamer Tamed) we learn that Kate let herself be tamed because she truly did love Petruchio and wanted to be a good wife to him.

Looking at this particular performance of Kiss Me, Kate! the speech just seems like a metaphor. Is Lilli really tamed like Kate? Most likely she isn't. But does she perform the speech? Yes. Lilli comes back to finish the performance and 'lovelingly' kisses Fred. I personally was unsure in this production of whether Lilli was just coming back to finish the show or if she was ending the relationship with Harrison in order to continue one with Fred. And this unsureness comes directly from what I harped on in the Acting critic. The detail! The details of Fred and Lilli's relationship throughout the entire piece were missing.

To read 'Bei Kiss me Kate nach Gefühlstiefe zu suchen :-) Liebe Victoria das ist wahrlich das falsche Stück dafür' in a comment posted annonymously on the Kiss Me, Kate! blog is a comment that is, I'm sorry, very naive. Do you mean to say musicals are incapable of producting deep feelings, or that this piece isn't worth exploring the depths of human emotion? Either way I must say that is comment way off the mark. All theatre, be it drama or muscial, is about love and the need for it/lack of it. Humans are about LOVE. For example: love of money will bring success or collapse, love for a woman is enough for men to be able to get through a war and come home, love for your nation or culture is enough reason to start a war (to defend what you love). All are extreme examples but it is true. Conflict and love are central to theatre, without it what is the point? (Ok, then we might have an absurdist piece, but we are talking about conventional theatre). And what makes musical theatre so special is that the feelings and emotions are so strong the characters must SING about them. The potential for an affective piece is in the script - it's there - the details were merely missing because of the unspecific choices by the actors. I wanted to see a Fred who is jealous because Lilli seems better off and happier with the General than when she was him. Or seeing both characters truly lose themselves in the Wunderbar sequence so that the kiss is real and that, we, as audience could feel like we were peeping Toms - witnessing a tender moment between the two ex-lovers. Which would contrast wonderfully with their hate later on in the show. How else can we believe the end scene. And this relationship needs to build with the Shrew story.

Just to aid my point I will quote an essential passage for acting written by Michael Shurtleff:

'An actor cannot act without creating a relationship with the other person who's onstage with him. Some actors do it intinctively, they are the lucky ones. But when the insticts don't work the way they should, the first things an actor must do then is ask questions about the relationship and insist upon full emotional answers that can lead him to commit himself fully. It's the full commitment that creates good acting. It's the achievement of a relationship of need and love that makes the audience believe.' (Audition, p.41)

This was my major concern with the production. It was safe. The facts were played - very nicely I must add. The production had a quality of being professional but in terms of the acting it was in want of specificity. I view the characters as characters that were played by actors, I was not invested in the story. I was not taken on the journey of Fred and Lilli - I did not believe this to be their struggle and therefore the end didn't quite fit either. I don't know why you go to the theatre Mr./Ms. Annonymous but I go to have an experience that isn't just as superficial as seeing nice dance moves and hearing melodic sounds, I go to be affected, to see the beauty that is life and humanity. I want to walk out of that theatre and realize that I can look at life another way because of those 2 hours I sat in an auditorium. Isn't that the point of art?