The Shrew Takes Charge

Directed by Jessica Risco

With William Brown III & Laura Jane Bailey

Based on: Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of The Shrew

Kate is on stage eating a piece of beef jerky. ROMEO comes stumbling on with a bottle of poison.

ROMEO: O, dark and dem’nous fate, thou art a whore! Thy boney fingers pluck again loves scabby wound and snatch my one and only Juliet!

KATHARINA: Fie, Thou stickish boy, the name’s not Fate. Forsooth, I say, my name is Kate. Neither are my fingers boney nor my loins for sale. I know not of Juliet ’tis true but hope she not be the waif in yon blackish tomb.

ROMEO: Alack, alack! Forsooth thou knowest the truth verily. My beating hearts’ reason lies cold and without breath within!

KATHARINA: Hold thy charging steeds and get not thy pantaloons in a bunch. ’Haps she not be cold save only frigid. I shall venture forth and test her temperature.

She walks into "the tomb". A few seconds later, she comes back.

KATHARINA: Yea, she doth seem dead.

ROMEO: Nay! Be it not so! My first, my true and only love is stricken thence! The stone pillow that cradles her head reflects the movement of the pillows encased softly in her corset!

KATHARINA: I do fear thy nature is too full of the milk of teenage hormones. T’was it not that the fair Rosaline was your true and only love less than a fortnight ago?

ROMEO: Hold, devil wench. How knowest thou these deepest desires and most private thoughts?

KATHARINA: Thy words spread near and far as thy heart beats mightily on thy sleeve as now. The tale of fickle Romeo hast traveled even to fair Padua. All do knowest thou, thou mop seed.

ROMEO: Woe, woe and despair! Without her sweet whispers and deep sighs I cannot fare another day. I shall drink of this demons dram to dispatch me. As was previously purchased from an apothecary!

KATHARINA: Comest thou, Romeo! Growest a pair! This mortal coil dost not wither as thine own globes do! I most recently ’scaped from home where I was starved and shackled to a suitor who would have me as his lap dog. Thou hearest me not weep and moan like a beaten bitch! So confused was I with "io’s" (pronounced EEO’s) changing faces to hoodwink my Father to believe they were who they were not that I ran hither.

ROMEO: "Io’s"?

KATHARINA: Lucentio, Grumio, Hortensio and the aforementioned Petruchio; all brimming o’er with disguises. But none relished in dress-up as did that Tranio! Little trollop!

ROMEO: How did’st thou travel hence?

KATHARINA: By Dromio. (Aside) Did he really write that?

ROMEO: Lo, what reason have I now to carry forth? Is love not the source of breath? What cause have I to remain without my fair Juliet?

KATHARINA: Fie, fie! Dost thy sword not fill unmeasured sheaths? Dost thou not wear garments of variant style and textures? Judging by thy past, thy affections skip from frond to frond as a frog dost from pond to pond. Thou art sturdy enough and not so void of comelyness as to turn a fair eye foul. Get thee to a bawdy house and try thy hand at a different glove. Forsooth, thou wilt be amazed at what sweet and sour flavors there be to taste!

ROMEO: Methinks thou art sour, true. Be thee sweet as well?

KATHARINA: In truth, I have been known to turn fools positively diabetic!

ROMEO: And mightest this hand fit well thy glove?

KATHARINA: See there, knave, thy post-pubescence flows forth and reveals thy true nature. And revealing thus mine own nature to be revealed to thee.

ROMEO: Thy nature shows well the fairest skin and eyes that doth coax my own nature from it’s dark and dankish tomb!

They are magnetically drawn to each other. They move in to kiss. From offstage, we hear a thump.

JULIET: Romeo, O Romeo, were the fuck are you?

ROMEO & KATHARINA: Shit!

END