My overall impression
With Danielle Ozymandias’s gifted direction and adaptation, one of Shakespeare’s most familiar plays gets a brand-spanking (sorry, couldn’t resist) new life with FIFTY SHADES OF SHREW.
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW always makes me squirm a bit as one of the bard’s best female characters seems to lose everything that makes her interesting. But in the context of BDSM, it now actually all makes sense. And I’ll never see the original the same way again.
It’s a very strong all-female ensemble, but stand-outs include Dawn Alden’s Petruchio, Jen Albert’s Katharina, Tara Donovan’s Bianca and Shana Gregory Williams’s Tranio. I could list everyone in the cast — they’re that good.
Special mention needs to go to Linda Muggeridge’s costumes, which place Shakespeare’s Padua if not in a dungeon, then certainly dungeon-adjacent.
So much fun.
