Vaudeville

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Monday, June 17th:

This version of “Taming of the Shrew” relies on a lot of comedic traditions that you would find in Vaudeville and Burlesque shows. Particularly the “straight man” routines like Abbott and Costello’s famous “Who’s on First?” routine (if you haven’t seen this one you really should!):

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg

 

There are many great “straight man and funny man” pairings in “Taming…”, as there are a wealth of different clowns and clown characters in the play!

 

TRANIO and LUCENTIO:

Tranio always seems to be the smarter of the two and get the drop on her young master! Some of the cleverest plans come from the young servant, and she is a puppet master to much of the action that sets the play in motion!

 

GRUMIO and PETRUCHIO:

Again, in this pairing, the servant is clearly the funnier of the two. But this time Grumio is funnier, not by his wit, but instead of his lack of wit. He always tries to do the right thing, but either be willful misunderstanding, or lack of experience in the world, things always end up misunderstood and a mess!

 

HORTENSIO and GREMIO:

These two seem to switch the straight man role whenever they banter. So we’ll let you decide – who is the funnier clown in this comic routine?

 

PEDANT and VINCENTIO:

Pedant here wins the comic role. Another clueless clown like Grumio, but even more so. The Pedant is a hopeless fool without two wits to rub together. But it is Pedant’s complete lack of brains and understanding of his situation that allows him to play the comic to Vincentio’s straight man.

 

LORD and SLY:

This is one that we may have missed! But while the Lord is the cleverer of the two, Sly obviously creates the comic moments in his experience of being duped into being a lord himself.

Another feature we’re pulling from Vaudeville is some act cards, that way, the audience knows when we switch locations and time without a change of scenery – it also allows us to use another tactic of Burlesque – a pretty girl holding up and switching the act cards! A Card Girl is not a very strong Shakespeare tradition (as all actors were men back then…) but something very common to 20th century comic routines, and like many Vaudeville routines, sometimes the pretty girl is even the best comic of the show… Think of someone like Gilda Radner or Madeleine Kahn – we’ve used a lot of those funny ladies in influencing our funny ladies in “Taming”! (Check out our hostess/Bianca, she’s funny and smokin’!)

 

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We’ll see you next time!

Joseph Campbell and the Hero with 1000 Faces

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 Friday, June 14th:

Who would you say is the hero in this play? Kate? Petruchio? The Lord? Christopher Sly? Is there a hero in this play? What a tough question to answer!

 

The reason why we even bring up “The Hero’s Journey” in the context of “Taming…” is the fact that many of the major characters experience a separation from their family/community, an initiation into a community through a transformative experience, and a return back to their old community and family circle. The obvious choice may be Kate, but we could also say Petruchio goes through a similar journey, or Lucentio, or Bianca, or Tranio… Even the Pedant experiences a journey of his own in the play.

 

This may be one of the few time you’ll see Kate compared to Luke Skywalker, but “Taming…” definitely falls into one of those coming-of-age stories where adventure and misunderstandings lead towards personal changes. Kate’s is the most obvious from a wild shrew at the start of the play to a tamer version of herself by her monologue; but Petruchio goes from a bachelor adrift on the road to a married man responsible for a wife, Bianca goes from a maiden to a bride, Lucentio goes from a young man set out for university to a married man himself – there are several hero’s journeys going on throughout the course of these five acts.

 

When you come and see the show, count how many heroic passages you can see! Maybe see how Tranio goes from a naïve young girl, to a masterful con-artist, or how the Pedant goes from a lost merchant to a sadder, but wiser man who learned a lesson about playing pretend. And you decide who is the hero of the play! (I’m rooting for Kate, myself!)

 

We’ll see you next time!

Context/History of the Play

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Wednesday, June 12th:

I love Harvard professor, Marjorie Garber’s book “Shakespeare After All” – Her chapter on “Taming of the Shrew” is one of the first articles I scanned in and sent to the cast to read and learn about the history and the context of the original play. I also love this book because from what I hear, it is also a major resource used in Leadership Training Lessons from Shakespeare courses that are currently very popular for management training. Anything that get Shakespeare out there and relatable to the public, I am all for that!

 

Some of the more important points of “Taming of the Shrew” are:

1. It was written during the time of and for Queen Elizabeth

2. It was written before both “Hamlet” and “Much Ado…” and used as practice/inspiration for both the “play within a play” scene in “Hamlet” and as Kate and Petruchio as precursors for Benedict and Beatrice in “Much Ado…”

3. Shakespeare was married Anne Hathaway, a lady 10 years his elder and a very strong woman in her own right.

4. “Taming” was based on an Italian Comedy called “The Shrew” and would have been a fairly well known theme of story and comedy when performed during Shakespeare’s present day.

 

Shakespeare may not have been a traditional feminist, but he definitely wrote some of the most interesting and compelling female characters that actresses still love tackling to this day. In “Taming of the Shrew”, traditionally Kate’s final monologue is the biggest challenge for any actress. In fact, this monologue has to be cut down in most productions – for us, we’re starting with the whole thing because of the social and comedic elements that we think that our Kate can bring to the part. So far, so good! There is a lot of natural comedy that comes out because of the casting in the parts of Kate and Petruchio, but also a lot of heart in Samantha’s interpretation of the piece. You’ll have to come and see a show to see how this turns out, and to see how Shakespeare writes for strong female characters.

 

We’ll see you next time!

Costume/Set/Props Design

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 Monday, June 10th:

I used to teach Musical Theatre and Comedy Summer Camps for 7-17 year olds I was always shocked, and thrilled that each generation LOVED dressing up, and The Marx Brothers. The future is in good hands, no need to worry.

 

When I taught about comedic design I would ask the kids about what they thought made funny design choices, and surprisingly regular, general design, haute couture, and comedic design are not all that different:

 

-       You play with color: bright, bold!

Ex: We’re looking at neon and primary colors to emphasize the general carnival atmosphere of the show.

 

-       You play with silhouette: big, small!

Ex: You can make an actor look bigger or smaller by what they wear, or changing a human into looking like an animal or a supernatural being.

 

-       You play with proportion: big, small!

Ex: Think of big pants or shoes on a clown, or too tight clothes, or out of age range clothing.

 

-       You play with pattern: bright, bold!

Ex: Mixing patterns are especially effective in comedy, and add to the overall clown feel. Many original clowns wore ill-fitting or second hand clothing because that’s all they had to use and wear, but now, it’s a costume!

 

-       You play with texture: shiny, fuzzy, etc!

Ex: Like shiny pants, sequins, furry coats, things that people use to draw attention to themselves can also work in developing clown costumes and the overall theatrical performance.

 

-       You play with expectations: Hats on feet! Shirts on butts!

Ex: This is why when Petruchio wears weird clothing to his wedding or a dress to Bianca’s wedding that it is funny, because he takes our expectations on what is appropriate to wear to weddings and twists them.

 

 

With “Taming of the Shrew” some big things we have focused on relate to practical reasons and highlighting the theatricality of the play.

 

We have a LOT of movement in the piece and it is very hot because we are performing mainly outside. Therefore, the actors must wear loose, light, breathable clothing in order to perform effectively, and not sacrifice their own health and safety. An example I have offered in helping the actors to work on creating their characters through their costuming is think of the Olivia Newton-John video for “Physical”. They are shown in work out clothing, but it is theatrical, shiny, and well put-together. That is a big difference between working out in a music video and working out in the gym in Hanes sweatshirt and pants! We’re always aiming for the highly-stylized of work out clothing, something where the cast can be clowns and express their individuality, but not look like an audience member, or look too sloppy and careless.

 

Another way we use props and set pieces to highlight the theatricality of the play is by playing up the bright colors and outlines of living in a circus or cartoon world. We’re really playing up that this performance space is “fake” or at least different and special from everyday life. We take an element from the real world, like a fireplace and logs – which actually exist in the performing location – but instead now they are “cartoonized” by reverting them back into pictorial representations in bright colors and bold outlines.

 

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Giant phallic pool noodles instead of swords? Yes, please! Safe, colorful, and funny.

 

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Fake fire, and logs? We could do real ones, especially at Smithfield Plantation in the Pavilion, but this is much better for our needs! Safer, cooler, and very fake.

 

We’ll see you next time!

Comedy Stock Characters, Tropes, and Running Gags

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Friday, June 7th:

One of the major pieces we are working on during rehearsal are developing unique takes on comedy stock characters, developing running gags and highlighting traditional comedy tropes in new ways. What are these things you wonder?

 

Stock characters we draw on are things like commedia del’arte (a future article) and our character inspirations (a past article!).

 

Here is an example of a running gag from “The Muppet Show”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LwMZHrRG0I

 

And tropes, well, those are a bit harder to describe, so let’s start with some definitions:

 

Definition of a stock character:

noun

a character in literature, theater, or film of a type quickly recognized and accepted by the reader or viewer and requiring no development by the writer.

Origin:

1860–65

 

Definition of a trope:

noun

1.

Rhetoric .

a.

any literary or rhetorical device, as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony, that consists in the use of words in other than their literal sense.

b.

an instance of this. Compare figure of speech.

2.

a phrase, sentence, or verse formerly interpolated in a liturgical text to amplify or embellish.

3.

(in the philosophy of Santayana) the principle of organization according to which matter moves to form an object during the various stages of its existence.

 

Definition of a running gag:

noun

1.

a joke or humorous allusion used recurrently in a play, film, television skit, etc., for a cumulative comic effect.

2.

a subject, reference, remark, etc., that is a continual source of humor.

 

The big differences I can highlight in relation to “Taming of the Shrew” is you need prior theatric experience to get a stock character – although many of us have experienced stock characters early in life through Looney Toons (even Bugs Bunny was based on Groucho Marx! And Groucho Marx drew his inspiration from the clowns in Eastern Europe! A lot of modern comedic ties are from old traditions).

 

You don’t need prior experience to get a trope, although it may help, the more experience and knowledge you have may make things funnier, but you can still find tropes funny on their own. They keep being reused in comedy, because they work! Tropes can expand beyond the context of the play. An example in “Taming…” is when a character may say something like “This is wonderful!” in a speech where they are supposed to be upset and NOTHING is wonderful at all, therefore, it is on the actor to express why they may say something contrary to the context.

 

Finally, a running gag HAS to exist in the world of the play. This is done often in shows like “Who’s Line is it Anyway?” when performers call back to an initial joke and play off of it later for greater laughs. In “Taming…” some of the greatest running gags we get to play off of relate to the suitors reacting to the presence or mention of Bianca, or when Hortensio and Gremio come into direct conflict. But you’ll have to come and see how many you can pull out for yourself!

 

We’ll see you next time!

Mel Brooks Quote about selfishness

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Wednesday, June 5th:

The Great Mel Brooks once said:

“Comedy is when you fall down an open manhole and die, and tragedy is when I get a paper cut on my finger.”

 

What Mel said he meant by that quote was that there is an inherent universal human selfishness and self-love that he likes to play off of in his comedy.

 

This is certainly true in our leading characters in “Taming of the Shrew”. Petruchio is selfish in refusing to move forward in his own adult like through his seeking a wealthy wife to support him and his current lifestyle as he is reeling from his father’s recent death. Kate is selfish in her stubbornness never to marry affecting both her sister and father in a negative way by refusing to move forward in her own adult like by forbidding them in moving forward with their own lives, too. What is magical is seeing our actors play selfish actors playing their own performative egos, but also how they change throughout the action of the play being Kate and Petruchio coming together to be less selfish and more selfless in a successful relationship at the end of the play.

 

There are, of course, examples of other characters being selfish too:

-       Bianca wanting to retain her freedom and flirt with ALL the boys

-       Baptista wanting his house to be his own without women in it

-       Lucentio to win the popular girl for his own

-       Tranio wanting Lucentio for her own and to be the cleverest out of the bunch

-       The Lord to have the world do his bidding just for his entertainment

-       Gremio in retaining his youth through chasing after younger girls

-       Christopher Sly in wanting a drink

-       Hortensio…. In loving Hortensio.

 

When you watch the play this summer, see how many acts of comedic selfishness our cast plays off of and highlight in the course of the play! I bet you can find much, much more than the small list provided here!

 

Enjoy some Mel Brooks on PBS Online for reference: http://video.pbs.org/video/2365014026

 

We’ll see you next time!