What if a leather-clad Spartan from “300” was pitted, not against the Persian army, but against “Desperate Housewives” femme fatale Eva Longoria? You’d get an epic battle of the sexes that makes the fighting in “300” look like a playground skirmish. You’d also get the premise for UCLA Shakespeare Reading and Performance Group’s version of Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.”
“I told the cast that this is just a sexual game and everyone gets laid in the end,” said Meghan Pleticha, the show’s director and a fourth-year lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies student.
“Everyone gets laid ““ except the director. I said I would channel my sexual frustration into directing,” Pleticha added jokingly.
The play, which runs tonight and Friday night at Northwest Campus Auditorium, is about an unmanageable woman, Kate, who insults everyone and anyone until she meets someone who can beat her at her own game: Petruchio.
“Taming of the Shrew” addresses who really has the power in a relationship and presents the view that a strong woman like Kate submitting to a man is a sign of trust rather than weakness.
In Pleticha’s version, Kate the shrew and her equally biting significant other, Petruchio, engage in a war of witty banter that effectively pits men against women in a struggle for the upper hand.
“Many modern productions change the ending where Kate submits to Petruchio because it seems anti-feminist, but I kept it,” Pleticha said.
“I don’t think submission makes her less strong; you have to remember that Shakespeare intended this to be a “˜play within a play'”“ it’s just one big fantasy.
“A lot of people don’t respect how much courage and strength it takes to submit to someone,” she added. “You have to go in trusting that your partner has your best interests in mind, even if you don’t understand them.”
This more liberal, lighthearted approach to the play is something Pleticha uses to downplay Kate’s submission. Pleticha firmly believes that her decision should not be taken too seriously and wants the audience to simply have a good old time.
The goal is to make the show as “fun and sexy” as possible, Pleticha said. And her cast has done just that; a few weeks before the play’s scheduled performance dates, all the male actors made a pact to go to the gym on a regular basis to look good for the director and the show.
“Meghan was joking last year that she wanted to direct a beautiful show with beautiful people. And that everyone would be half-naked. So I thought, “˜I better get in shape for this,'” said Sean Berquist, a second-year physiological science student who plays Petruchio.
As the ultimate macho character, Berquist has all the more reason to look Spartan-like for the play. And it is through working out at the gym that he has done his character work, not in a traditional actor’s workshop.
“I saw how people carried themselves while they were walking around the gym … these big guys who acted cocky and thought they could beat up anybody,” Berquist said. “I remember seeing this guy who thought he was the man. I’m trying to be that guy at the gym who thinks, “˜I’m a hot shot.'”
Chelsea Cooper, a second-year sociology student who plays Kate, had a harder time getting into her character because she held the typical feminist view that Kate loses her power to Petruchio in the end.
However, Cooper eventually realized that the play is just an artificial world that is not meant to be a direct reflection of reality.
“I just thought, it’s a sexual fantasy ““ it’s supposed to be fun,” she said. “When Kate submits to Petruchio, she’s showing her vulnerability to Petruchio. She realizes that Petruchio loves her. … He may be a smart aleck, but he’ll take care of her.”
As boisterous as Petruchio’s character might seem, Pleticha’s production shows that he is actually very loving toward Kate. He finds his equal in her and can even be a sweetheart.
“In the wedding scene, I wear a beggarly outfit with a top hat. People look at me like I’m crazy,” Berquist said.
“But I tell them what I wear doesn’t matter because it’s me Kate’s marrying, not my clothes. It goes back to how I teach Kate that she doesn’t have to put up a front and that I love her as she is.”
Pleticha noted that the play allows the modern-day taboo against female submission and the concepts that relate to submission, such as sexuality, to be broken.
“There’s a fear with feminists who don’t like Kate’s submission,” she said. “But people are afraid of their own sexuality. If you are in a loving relationship, you can break the rules.”
While a Spartan and Longoria would probably never be able to work things out, Kate and Petruchio both come to the conclusion that all is not fair in love and war, because love always triumphs.
“They’re the only happy couple at the end of the play,” Pleticha said.
Unfortunately for tonight’s “Taming of the Shrew” audience, there won’t be any men in leather briefs. But Pleticha does promise a few surprises, especially with “costume adjustments,” which offer to appease any dissenters who are still upset by the ending.
“The guys spent all this time working out to look hot for the play,” she said. “So they might be pulling their shirts up a little during (the performance). … We’ll see.”