Gremio vs. Grumio

In honor of our second night of Taming of The Shrew, we thought we’d take a moment to highlight the real conflict of the play: Gremio vs. Grumio! Here to share their thoughts on these two characters are Ron Talbot and Shane Rhoades, who bring these two characters to life all this month at Theater Pub.

So, who are you in a hundred words or less!

Ron: I am a contrarian. All my life society, family, friends and not-so-friends have attempted to categorize me and lock me into a nice comfortable slot to match their world view. As a very stubborn and ornery individual by nature (sometimes to my detriment) I have taken a perverse joy in reshaping myself to consistently defy expectations. Now I enjoy a wonderfully fulfilling life that revolves around family, friends, challenging work, and theatre. And my cat.

Shane: I am a Bay Area native, born and raised. I grew up in San Bruno, went to school at San Jose State, and I have been acting in San Francisco for the past two years. Before I caught the theatre bug, I was a major sports junkie. Wrestling (I love spandex), football and baseball were my favorite sports.

And how did you get involved with Theater Pub?

Shane: I heard about Theater Pub quite often during a production of 12th Night that I was in a couple of years ago. Many of my cast mates were previously involved in Theater Pub and my director (Stuart) I believe was producing Pint Size around the same time as the run of our show. The following spring, Stuart and Karen Offereins asked me to be a part of Odes to March, which reunited me with many of my fellow 12th Nighters and I had a blast doing it.

Ron: Kim Saunders (Kate) recommended me to the director and he was brave (foolish) enough to cast me sight unseen. No pressure, nope, none al all… (Editor’s note: not entirely true: I had seen Ron before I cast him and I liked his look for the character; plus I know Kim well enough to know she’d never be married to a bad actor).

What’s got you excited about working here? What’s got you worried?

Shane: I always love doing Shakespeare, and roles that require a lot of physical comedy. I also love performing in plays that tend to be very divisive and elicit very passionate responses from the audience. People are never indifferent about their feelings towards Shrew, and I think that what makes it such an exciting play. The atmosphere of Theater Pub is always so much fun to perform in as well. At first, I was very concerned if I was the right fit for Grumio. I never pictured myself playing him, but I am working with a great cast and the process has been great, so I am not as concerned now.

Ron: Excited – I have a long standing love of Shakespeare and the opportunity to perform in such and fun and vibrant atmosphere as Cafe Royal/Theatre Pub is a dream come to true for me. I am a strong proponent on making Shakespeare’s plays more accessible, fun and direct. All to often they are presented either in a stagnate and overly rarified manner or they are forcibly warped and corrupted to illustrate some social or political agenda. Worried – A beer falling on my head. (We have a balcony) Seriously though we only have 2-3 weeks to fully stage an entire Shakespearian script; exhilarating, challenging, and deeply terrifying.

Have you ever been in Shrew before? What’s your history with this show?

Shane: I was in Taming of the Shrew a few years ago in San Jose. I played all of the roles that were, in essence, background scenery (Officer, Haberdasher and one of the servants), so I am very happy to revisit this play with a much more substantial part.

Ron: This will be my third Shrew, and in may ways this play is tracking my life progress. First I played the young idealistic lover, Lucentio, then I moved on to play the mature and somewhat cynical Petruchio, and now, the grumpy old man, Gremio.

Ron Talbot: A Shrew’s Best Friend

Tell us about your character- what do you love about them, what do you hate about them- what do you see as the biggest challenge?

Shane: There are many things that I love about Grumio, but I especially love the relationship he has with Petruchio. It’s almost like they’re siblings. One minute they have each others back then they’re at each other’s throat the next. I can’t say that I hate anything about Grumio. There are a couple of challenges with Grumio because there really isn’t very much revealed about him throughout the play. He’s a pretty obscure character who is prone to making very random statements. He can be interpreted many different ways, which is exciting, but therein lies the first challenge. The second is to not make him a caricature, which is very easy to do with this role.

Ron: Gremio is a fairly straightforward character with roots in Comedia. I like to think of him as mixture of a country gentleman and a dirty old man. I suppose the biggest challenge is not to lose the audience’s sympathy, Winter/spring marriages are looked upon with abhorrence by our society and while I want the audience to root for Lucentio I also don’t want to despise Gremio.

One of you is named Grumio and one of you is named Gremio. What do you think is up with that? Was it a misprint? Does it mean something? Was Shakespeare just lazy?

Shane: I have no idea. I was too lazy to look into it.

Ron: I don’t read to much into this. There are lots of names in english that sound almost identical. To an Italian they probably don’t even notice the similarity. Consider Ron/Don/John or Lauren/Laura.

In a fight between Gremio and Grumio, who do you think would win?

Ron: My only hope would involve a Bazooka and 100 yard starting range, other then that Grumio would win hands down. Our Grumio is pretty much the personification of “Big Strapping Lad”.

Shane Rhodes: strapping lad.

Shane: Grumio, by far! Grumio is a bit more rough around the edges and can take a beating. Gremio’s chin is questionable.

A lot of famous lines in Shrew- what’s your favorite one?

Ron: One of Kate’s lines that resonates strongly with me as well, oftentimes to my detriment: “My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break.”

Shane: A line that was unfortunately cut from this version. “Am I but three inches?”-Grumio

A large selection of beers at our bar- what’s your favorite beer?

Shane: I could always go for a good IPA.

Ron: Bodington’s! Come see the and show and if you like it, buy me one.

Shrew has its second performance tonight- don’t miss it! It starts at eight, only at the Cafe Royale in San Francisco, but get there early because we fill up! Plus, we have a pop-up sushi kitchen tonight, starting around 6 PM, so get there early to get a table and enjoy some sushi before the show!

Paul Plays Petruchio

In anticipation of our upcoming production of Taming of the Shrew, we caught up with local actor Paul Jennings, who will be playing Petruchio. Last seen at the Pub playing Falstaff in The Boar’s Head, Paul took a moment to talk about what it takes to play one of literature’s most infamous good/bad husbands. 

So, who are you in a hundred words or less!

I am currently a proud Oakland resident, though I was born, and mostly raised in San Francisco. I am also a sometime producer, and frequent actor with a serious Shakespeare habit, having performed in 47 productions of 26 of the plays.

And how did you get involved with Theater Pub?

I first got involved with Theatre Pub when Jessica Richards asked me to audition for Boar’s Head in early 2011. I was cast (as Falstaff) and completely fell in love with the whole thing while doing the show.

What’s got you excited about working here? What’s got you worried?

I love the immediacy of the performance, and the interaction with the audience and the environment – there’s nowhere to hide, and it makes connecting that much easier.  I don’t actually have any worries, simply because, by the nature of the project, the things that could be a concern – all those unknown, uncontrollable variables – are part of the experience.

Have you been in this play before? What’s your history with this show?

This is only my second production of Shrew – I played Grumio ages ago…I was about to comment on the, “only second” because it seems to be such a popular show – but then I realized that it actually *isn’t* performed all that often, especially in the Bay Area. I think this is mainly because it’s a hard show to do without the resulting “misogynist/feminist “dialogue becoming the focal point.

Tell us about your character- what do you love about them, what do you hate about them- what do you see as the biggest challenge?

The thing I hate about Petruchio is less actually about the character, but that he’s typically played along the lines of the hyper-masculine, “I’ll stop drinking just long enough to abuse this woman” performance that Richard Burton gave in the film version, which leads to the (mistaken, I believe) impression that the play is misogynist but I find his overriding trait to be “a complete and total unwillingness to be other than he is” – which is a character trait he shares with Kate, and I think that *this* is a huge part of their mutual attraction.

When you go about creating a role, what’s your process, in a nutshell? How do find a way into a character, particularly one written so long ago?

Leaving my internal process for inhabiting a role aside, for me, the most important thing about finding a character, especially, in Shakespeare, is using the text to inform my choices. I find that pretty much everything the playwright needs us to know is spelled out for us right there, we just have to learn to look for the clues. I find that  choices in the use of words make a world of difference – Do they suddenly shift from the formal ‘you’ to the intimate ‘thou’? Are they echoing their scene partner? Are they shifting from Verse to prose?

What do you think this play has for a modern audience?

I think Shrew, tricky piece that it is, is still tremendously funny – it was, meant to be a comedy, after all – there’s a lot of really witty dialogue, as well as a lot of dialogue that *was* witty – to the cognoscenti of  425 years ago. In addition, I think there’s a lot of truth on a deeper level about human nature– Petruchio basically spells it out:

“…all the world,
That talk’d of her, have talk’d amiss of her:
If she be curst, it is for policy…”

She’s not shrewish by nature, but as a reaction to the unreasonable demands of her family and society, that insist she be who *they* think she should be.

A lot of famous lines in Shrew- what’s your favorite one?

As someone with an almost obsessive love for the period, and the language, the philosophy and classical references found within, I’m afraid to report that my favorite line is a smutty double-entendre that brings out my inner 6^th grader:

Lucentio: Spit in the hole, man, and tune again.

A large selection of beers at our bar- what’s your favorite beer?

Guiness!!!

Don’t miss Paul, and the rest of this fantastic cast, in Taming of the Shrew, which plays four nights only- March 18, 19, 25 and 27, at 8 PM at the Cafe Royale. No reservations necessary as admission is free (with a suggested five dollar donation at the door), but get there early as we tend to fill up!