It’s been a while since I’ve seen
a show and actually wanted to rush home and write the review immediately –
hence a recent lack of posts. But tonight things changed. I almost didn’t get
my bum off the sofa and make it to the White Bear pub/theatre to see the Two
Gents play Taming of the Shrew.
Boy, I’m glad I did.
The Two Gents (for tonight) were literally
made up of two actors, one is, in fact, a gent, and one is a woman – Isaac and
Dilek. These two are backed by what they describe as a ‘cross cultural touring
company’ – you could see from the audience alone the tight bonds within this
small group, I recognised a number of the spectators from the backstage
pictures on their website.
So how do you perform a play with
a 21 strong character list with just two cast members? To find out the answer,
you really need to see the Two Gents performing for yourself, but I’ll try to
give a bit of a taster. Isaac and Dilek entered the small performance room in
plain clothes, bucket in hand, and laid out housekeeping rules and information about
the performance to come to the sound of Isaac’s drumming beat on the bucket. This
immediately introduced a sense of total ease and comfort – if a line was
forgotten or a wrong character trait was used it was laughed off rather than
awkwardly covered up, a much more comfortable informal theatre experience in my
book.
We were told each character would
have their own characteristic to differentiate and make quick transitions
clearer – I was dubious about how easy this was going to be to follow. Well, this
may sound impossible, but each character was well developed and recognisable.
This was potentially down to the camaraderie that both actors kept up with the
audience. Taming has a lot of scenes
with a lot of characters in them, this was tackled uniquely by targeting
specific audience members to fill in the physical absence of more actors – and,
with a little bit of imagination on our part, it worked every time.
A word on the Kate and Petruchio
storyline. This was particularly important to me as I have recently been
reading a lot of feminist criticism on domestic violence in the play. Critics
such as Emily Detner have suggested that the play should be taken seriously in
today’s society as it dramatically undermines mental manipulation and domestic
abuse that effects so many women. I was therefore unsure about seeing the play
performed so comically as this production was clearly going to be. Maybe my
expectations of the actors were too low, but I was surprised with how well they
dealt with it. Dilek played Petruchio and Isaac played Katherina. At first Kate
was a butch, aggressive…..shrew? but her (or his should I say?) development
into a silent, solemn-faced coward-in-the-corner was truly realistic. Petruchio’s
superficial offer of food before refusing to allow a starving Kate to eat
without thanking him was a seriously chilling moment in the midst of all the comedy.
From the flawless switching of
characters between each other, to the imagination of props and setting, the
chemistry between Isaac and Dilek was perfection. Their relationship drew the
audience into a very interactive theatre experience. Admittedly, they nearly
lost me at the end with the final speeches, but everyone was fully brought back
to life with an updated version of the old-school Shakespearean jig, complete
with beat drumming and hip swaying. I will certainly be following this
innovative theatre group in all their future endeavours.
Take a look at their next set of dates here
