Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2010

Who knew there was a link between Japanese theater director Yukio Ninagawa’s European success and tours to Japan by student actors from the UK? The Oxford University Drama Society has been coming here for 13 years thanks to benefactor Thelma Holt, who is also the European producer of Ninagawa’s immensely popular kabuki productions of Shakespeare plays. The current OUDS tour itself concludes with a performance at Ninagawa’s Saitama Arts Theatre.

The society’s junkets were conceived to help students work with theater professionals overseas, as well as to provide audiences with a look at some of the emerging talent from Oxford. The hallowed British university has been the starting point for many actors, including Rosamund Pike, who played the shrew Katherine in the OUDS’ 1997 production of The Taming of the Shrew.

Director Alice Hamilton tells Metropolis she chose to reprise the play simply because it’s easier to understand than other Shakespeare comedies. She also wanted to explore the emotion at the heart of the quirky love story between Petruchio and Katherine, which has been neglected by many directors who have focused on the controversial and, some say, misogynistic aspects of the play.

In essence, The Taming of the Shrew is the story of Petruchio’s successful effort to “tame” the headstrong heiress Katherine. Whether this is to be taken at face value, or as a send-up of patriarchal traditions, has been the subject of controversy almost since the play was written in the 1590s.

“Shakespeare’s controversial comedy is constructed as a play within a play [which] can provide convenient distancing from potentially uncomfortable subject matter,” Hamilton says. “In describing the play as ‘controversial,’ I am referring to the responses it has provoked regarding its perceived message about the treatment of women. Even with the distancing filter of the framing device, the ‘taming’ plot has been popularly explored and criticized. I do not intend that this production should contribute to the gender politics debate, but choose rather to focus on the quirky love story and the play’s comic potential.”

Instead of Shakespeare’s setting of ancient Padua, Hamilton updates the action for a contemporary audience. The framing device revolves around a spoiled Italian university undergraduate who becomes absorbed and ultimately sucked into a piece of street theater upon his arrival in Padua. Starring as Katherine is Emma Pearce, the recipient of a British American Drama Academy scholarship, with Edinburgh Fringe Festival veteran Jacob Taee as Petruchio.

Since the closure of the Tokyo Globe, the OUDS and the International Theatre Company London are among the few touring English Shakespeare productions to visit Japan. Says OUDS producer Hannah Martin: “The tour reflects an immensely important cultural collaboration which has seen numerous artistic exchanges made between the two countries, always to the profit of both audiences and practitioners.”

The Taming of the Shrew
Aug 7, 6:30pm; Aug 8, 1pm, ¥2,000 (students)/¥2,500 (adults). Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space, Ikebukuro. Tel: 03-5985-1707; Aug 10, 7pm, ¥2,000 (students)/¥2,500 (adults). Tel: 048-858-5500.