How to wrangle a shrew? Jude Christian’s answer is to chuck her into a soft play area and hold a gun to her head. Bold, absurdist ideas jostle for attention in this bemusing new production of Shakespeare’s tricky tale, but they’re rarely portrayed clearly enough to make us care about the characters beneath the chaos.
Design takes centre stage. The players spill out of an enormous teddy’s hollowed-out abdomen, as if this is not just a play, or even a drunken dream, but a child’s silly game. The production is full of foolishness but low in actual laughs, as it reaches for ideas of coercion through puppetry, with large faces stuck to stomachs and heads wobbling on sticks. Rosie Elnile’s designs look fantastically, artfully odd, but they frequently distract from the story’s pace and clarity.
