In the principal roles, Michael Chmiel as Petruchio and Katherine Malak as Katherina.
Shakespeare’s captivating “Taming of the Shrew” leads off Friday (June 19) the four productions of Summer Theatre of New Canaan’s professional-level season under the dramatic sweep of an all-weather tent at Waveny Park that protects the audience and allows the show to go on even if it rains.
The season unfolds in the pastoral beauty and quietude of a park a minute away from the Merit Parkway in a festive ambiance that offers the incomparable stagecraft of a playwright who speaks to all of us and is so revealing of the human soul.
Allegra Libonati, the director, offers Shakespeare’s timeless and lyrical epic as a two-hour contemporary-styled production with a subtext that conveys “a powerful and deeper message of about love and trust in relationships”--as opposed to the conventional probe of comic misogyny.
The words are brimming with the rhythms of life and faithful to Shakespeare’s infinitely pleasurable and exceedingly rich text. But the setting replicates fashion week in Padua, Italy, the costuming created with the elegant flair by Arthur Oliver from Shakespeare & Company of Lennox, MA who collaborated in 2005 with Grammy Award winner Carly Simon on “Created by Carly Simon: Dancers in the Yard.
Patrick Lynch, the protégé of Eugene Lee who has framed the edgy urban humor for “Saturday Night Live” since its 1975 inception, is the New Canaan set designer.
Summer Theatre of New Canaan has established itself over the past five outdoor seasons as an authentic Connecticut nonprofit cultural resource, drawing critical praise and theatergoers from across the state and Westchester County to the acres and woods and grass stretches of the park—many with picnic baskets crammed with culinary delights—for premier entertainment.
Terrence MacSweeny as Hortencio, costume by Arthur Oliver.
The show opens Friday night, June 19 and runs Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. through July 11 with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. A 55-minute interactive version for young people called “Shakespeare for Kids” is to be staged Saturdays at 2 p.m., June 27, July 4 and July 11.
All theater seating is reserved with tickets at $28 to $39. There is some open hillside seating available 90 minutes before curtain. The theater also offers two Pay-What-U-Can performances, a June 21 Sunday matinee at 3 p.m. and an evening show, Wednesday, June 24 at 7:30 p.m.
A Gala Party Celebration is set for Saturday, June 20, featuring hosted dinners at 5 p.m. and champagne and desert at 7 p.m. before an 8 p.m. curtain.
Ticket information for all shows and the gala is available online at www.stonc.org. The box office number is (203) 966-4634. Parking is accessible through New Canaan High School and the entrance at 11 Farm Rd.
The cast of “Taming of the Shrew” is Actors’ Equity and New York-based and follows a series of professional-level presentations that has drawn critical acclaim and two nominations in 2008 for Connecticut Critics Circle awards.
Cast of “Taming of the Shrew” in rehearsal for June 19 opening at Waveny Park in New Canaan, left to right, Christian Libonati, foreground, Terrence MacSweeny, Katherine Malak as Katherina, Michael Chmiel as Petruchio, Omen Sade and Jed Peterson.
In the lead role of Katherina, the shrew of the title, is Katherine Malak who says the character she plays affirms that there is redemption in transformation. “It’s never too late to open up your heart and change for the better,” she says. “And there is even power in surrender.”
Opposite her is Michael Chmiel who appears as Kate’s suitor Petruchio and is one of four cast members returning from last season’s presentations of “Twelfth Night.” His character, he sees, as “a juggler, a percussive personality who shoots from the hip and runs on moxie.”
Mace Perlman, a Greenwich actor who studied mime with Marcel Marceau and refined his dramatic skills with Italy’s classic Commedia dell’arte, portrays Baptista, the father of Kate and the czar of the Padua fashion empire that Libonati created as the evocative setting for the show.
He says Shakespeare’s rich texture defines the distinction between true values of life and the trappings that obscure what is meaningful, a contrast that is critical in an age where the public is bombarded by the electronic images of pop culture.
Terrence MacSweeny, a suitor called Hortencio, acclaims Shakespeare’s language as “the greatest weapon you have as a performer” and a “special effect” that the audience shares with the performer.
Brian Silliman and Jed Peterson both play suitors of Kate’s sister Bianca. Silliman is one of the actors from 2008,back in New Canaan. He also toured in 2008 with the New York-based Aquila theatre Company in “The Iliad” and “The Comedy of Errors.” Peterson appears as Lucentio whom he describes as “the kind of guy I’d like to have a beer with.”
Another supporting performer is Omen Sade who is portraying the servant Tranio with a “mischievous bent” and identifies Johnny Depp as the actor he most admires because Depp is “so connected to his imagination and seems to be able to perform effortlessly, artfully walking the theatrical tightrope with great intellect.”
Summer Theatre of New Canaan in a non-profit that later this season is also staging “Pinocchio” as an original folk musical and the classic “Camelot” based on King’ Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table and their view of a better world.
