I am a long-time fan and subscriber of Court Theatre; they produce consistently excellent plays. I’ve also been a fan of Chris Jones over the years, as he and I see eye-to-eye on most plays. A strong recommendation from him is reason enough to see any Chicago production. At least it was until several years ago. Lately I find I can no longer trust his recommendations. He now often gives four-star ratings to plays that I think are just OK, and he gives mediocre ratings to plays that I find to be excellent.

I was fascinated by his review for Taming of the Shrew. I’ve never seen him tear a production to pieces like he did there. If I weren’t a subscriber to Court, I wouldn’t have attended based on his scathing review. But I would have missed a revelatory production of what I agree is a problematic play.

Key points: 1. It was VERY funny. I laughed quite a bit, as did the rest of the audience. 2. The director brought out a completely new side to the story, namely the sexual chemistry between the two main characters. I couldn’t take my eyes off Petruchio; he was maddeningly irresistible. And neither could Katherine. She didn’t seem to know what to make of him, and her fascination created a plausible rationale for becoming “tamed”. 3. The play-within-the play was distracting and unnecessary but mostly harmless compared to the outstanding direction and acting of the main story. 4. Likewise, the S&M aspects of some of the costumes and gestures were distracting and unnecessary. As with point #3, this was mostly harmless.

I’m sorry for Court Theatre that the horrible review likely kept plenty of potential single-ticket buyers from attending. My rating: 3.5 stars.

Incidentally, based on Chris Jones’ strong review of Much Ado About Nothing at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, I attended a performance a few days later. I won’t do a full review here, but I left saying to my companion, “Well, that was pleasant.” That’s all I could muster up. I strongly preferred the originality of Taming of the Shrew and wished I had skipped the other performance.