BWW Reviews: Kentucky Shakespeare Mounts Very Special - and Excellent - Edition of 'Shrew'

This summer, Amy Attaway and Kentucky Shakespeare, the oldest free Shakespeare festival in the country, purveyors of plays with 400 years of history behind them, may have done something revolutionary for both the company and the city of Louisville. They may have shown their audience something they have never seen before.

That's not to say they have unearthed some long-forgotten addition to Shakespeare's body of work, coincidentally sharing the title "The Taming of the Shrew" with another, long-established work. The play is certainly a mainstay of the Shakespeare library and has been staged over a half-dozen times by the company before. But Attaway delved deep into the history of the play to incorporate the rarely head-of "Shadow Text" elements featuring one Christopher Sly, the drunkard who sets the play in motion.

Attaway incorporates Sly's additional appearances to turn "Shrew" into something more: a true play-within-a-play that explores all manner of comedic avenues. Her experiment, gamely taken on by Kentucky Shakespeare's eager and able repertory company, is a resounding success.

The players who happen along to hoodwink Sly into think he is worthy of personal performance fit for nobility would be the envy of any authentic court. They (as extensions of set designer Paul Owens) outfit the playing space in bright, bold tarps and signage and don ostentatious costuming (courtesy of Donna Lawrence-Downs) that is absurd around the edges. Attaway and sound designer Laura Ellis pepper in contemporary elements like nondiagetical harp scoring and record scratches to up the silliness. These elements flirt with excess, but are used from many different approaches to incorporate and ingratiate into the overall design of the proceedings.

Such ornamentation would work as disguising elements for a less confident rendition of this play. Here, they only add to the core of well-realized and bombastic performance. There is nary a small role nor weak player to be found in this cast. Leading the charge are the pair whom Kentucky Shakespeare fans eagerly hoped would take on the at-odds pairing of Kate and Petruchio when this play was announced: Gregory and Abigail Maupin. Both bring razor-sharp wit and textual comprehension along with the imagination to explore the space between the lines to bring a rare and welcome approach to the characters: a Kate and Petruchio who actually grow quite fond of one another, and are touching to behold.

The rest of the cast has no trouble keeping apace. Neill Robertson's Tranio is manically hilarious while going beyond simply playing for laughs. He commits to the subterfuge of Lucentio completely, and addresses Sly's interruptions of the action with ingenuity, drafting him for the part of pseudo-Vincentio in the play's final act. Sarah Jo Provost clearly has a ball playing Bianca as Daddy's Girl who is in full possession of the manipulative power of her charms. Jon Patrick O'Brien takes on the added responsibility of Sly with inebriated gusto, enjoying his sleazy pomp and tackling his walk-on part gamely before being unceremoniously dispatched of at the close.

These are but a few highlights of the stellar troupe Attaway and artistic director Matt Wallace have assembled for this summer's trifecta of productions. With a stellar "Tempest" and boisterous "Shrew" under their belts, we have the exciting possibilities of Wallace's "Macbeth" to look forward to. In this new, refreshed era for Kentucky Shakespeare, Wallace and company are on track to make their sophomore year as good as, if not better than, the last.

Kentucky Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" returns July 16 for the company's rotating repertory run, culminating in the Bard-A-Thon, presenting all three main-stage productions in one day on July 25. For a full schedule and more details, go to http://www.kyshakespeare.com