Quintessence’s ‘Kiss Me, Kate’ puts Shakespeare’s ‘Shrew’ to a modern reckoning

Scripts in hand, the cast and crew of “Kiss Me, Kate” began rehearsing the Quintessence Theatre Group’s latest offering on the morning of election day.

It proved to be more relevant than anyone expected.

The play — a Cole Porter musical riff on William Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew” — is a backstage comedy about a powerful woman who won’t be tamed and makes her own choices.

Although Quintessence chose the play long before the election, and even long before Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee, the connection between the events of the day and the message of “Kiss Me, Kate” weren’t lost on its cast and crew.

The play “says there is a place for powerful women, to be themselves, to speak for themselves and to be equal partners for themselves,” said Todd Underwood, who has traveled from New York to choreograph and direct Quintessence’s production, running from Nov. 27 through Jan. 5 at the Sedgwick Theater in Philly’s Mt. Airy neighborhood.

“Together, without any ego and without any artifice, it shows how two people, a group of people, a nation, a world, how we should all be equal and we should all have a say,” Underwood said.

“Colorful, powerful, empowered, headstrong — when [these words] are attached to women, it’s a negative,” he said. “This play says, `No, these are positives.’ ”

Shakespeare’s play, penned around 1590, centers on the character of Katherina, the title shrew, known to be headstrong and outspoken. Many suitors seek to wed Bianca, her beautiful younger sister, as she is considered to be the ideal woman. But her father, a rich nobleman, won’t consent to any marriage until Katherina is wed.

Knowing her father’s wealth, Petruchio sees an opportunity and marries Katherina, “taming” her psychologically.

To what extent the bard’s work is misogynistic has been the subject of many a term paper and is part of the dynamic that exists today and existed in 1948 when Cole Porter’s Broadway hit had its pre-Broadway tryouts at Philadelphia’s Shubert Theatre (now the Miller Theater).

A play within a play within a play

In Porter’s re-staging, the lead characters, Lilli Vanessi/Katharine and Fred Graham/Petruchio are actors in a revival of Shakespeare’s play. Divorced, they both love and loathe each other. There are many backstage subplots and lots of great songs to accompany them, including the classic, sung by gangsters, “Brush Up On Your Shakespeare.”

Underwood says the backstage, behind-the-scenes element is part of “Kiss Me, Kate’s” enduring appeal.

“It’s sort of the voyeurism of having the inside scoop,” Underwood said.

“This group of 12 people are telling the story within the story, within the story, within the story,” said Underwood, who also choreographed the Broadway touring production of “Kiss Me, Kate,” with double the cast.

The characters, he said, “are so individual in the beginning. They play the crew of the show. Then, they go off stage and become the actors in the show. And then, a couple of our actors go off stage and become different characters in the show.”

Playing the lead is local favorite Jennie Eisenhower, of Paoli, who has had a long history with “Kiss Me, Kate.” As a teenager, she directed it for a school production at Conestoga High School on the Main Line. In college, she performed in the play. And, in 2016, the same year Hillary Clinton ran for president and lost, director Peter Reynolds cast Eisenhower in the lead role for a production at Ambler’s Act II Playhouse.

“The roles are so juicy and complex,” she said. “I understand there’s an ungirding of Shakespearean misogyny baked into it, but there is an interesting exploration of how it is retrofitted for a contemporary audience by Porter.

“She actually makes the feminist choice at the end of the piece,” Eisenhower said. “It seems like she’s acquiescing to this powerful man, but underneath it is the wink and the nod to the idea that she must bow to her husband.”

Presidential prerogative

Eisenhower, who has appeared on most of the region’s stages, got her start as a youngster, performing “How Much Is That Doggy In The Window,” for her grandfather, former president Richard Nixon, then living in Saddle River, N.J. Her great-grandparents are former president Dwight Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie Eisenhower.

Nixon’s home, where little Jennie Eisenhower watched Shirley Temple movies with her grandmother, Thelma Catherine “Pat” Nixon, had pocket doors in the dining room that slid open into a hall, serving as stage and curtains.

To play the part of the doggie in the window, Eisenhower recruited her younger sister, who ended up stealing the show. “They say, `Never appear on stage with dogs or children. They get all the attention.’ I was setting myself up for failure,” she laughed.

Years later, her grandfather came to see Eisenhower perform at Conestoga High in the starring role of Little Red Riding Hood in Stephen Sondheim’s “Into The Woods.”

“He came and saw me and stayed” signing autographs,” she remembered. “He was there for hours, and two weeks later, he passed away.”     

FYI

“Kiss Me, Kate,” Nov. 27-Jan. 5, Quintessence Theatre Group, Sedgwick Theater, 7137 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, 215-987-4450.

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