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| Quinn Mattfeld and Betsy Mugavero photo courtesy Southwest Shakespeare Company |
If it's winter in Phoenix that means it's time once again for the Southwest Shakespeare Company to push the boundaries by starting off the new year in repertory style. Starting this Friday, February 22, they are performing two Shakespearean plays, The Taming of the Shrew and As You Like It, with the same cast, alternating each day of the weekend. Married couple Quinn Mattfeld and Betsy Mugavero are the co-producing artistic directors who joined the company last year and this will be their first time taking the Southwest Stage together with Mattfeld and Mugavero as the leads in The Taming of the Shrew and Mattfeld directing As You Like It with Mugavero as the lead.
“(This) Friday night we do The Taming of the Shrew, Saturday night we do As You Like It. It is a repertory fashion.” Betsy explained. “We are using the same set for both plays but with different aesthetics placed and different elements.”
The Taming of the Shrew was written by Shakespeare near the beginning of his career and As You Like It was written near the end. Southwest Shakespeare is doing these two comedies together because they are so different from each other.
The Taming of the Shrew is about a woman named Katherine who is considered an untamable woman where no man wants to marry her and for every man who does, she refuses. Petruchio is recruited as a wife for Kate and at first, he agrees because she is the daughter of a wealthy man and he will inherit money. But as Mattfeld and Mugavero explain, the story grows and is so much more than the title suggests.
“It’s interesting,” Mattfeld started, “We give Shakespeare the benefit of the doubt and realize that there is depth and complexity in his stories when we are talking about Hamlet or Macbeth or Othello. But when we talk about comedy we tend not to do that which is odd. The Taming of the Shrew on the surface is a story about a crazy woman and a guy who has to control her. But then you look at it closely and there is a different meaning and you see what Shakespeare’s intention was.”
“It’s these two misfits who meet and find acceptance with each other,” Mugavero added. “What happens in our telling of it, is that Kate and Petruchio are equal with each other. All you hear from these other characters is how Kate is this horrible shrew and that no one wants her. But there is really no moment where she is showing her awfulness. She is a misunderstood woman.”
“And for Petruchio,” Mattfeld added, “it is all about money. But then he meets Kate, and from that point on in the script, he never says another word about money.”
This is Mattfeld’s first time being in this play, he explained how he always avoided this comedy because it is a hard show to tackle due to the subject matter. However, now that he is in it, he has been able to see Shakespeare’s genius and purpose of this show. Especially in his use of disguise and masks throughout the telling of the story. In The Taming of the Shrew, many characters use disguises, physically and metaphorically, in order to trick other characters in order to further their own means.
“Petruchio points out to people how silly these masks and disguises are and that they can be used to your purposes they are only as useful as you let them be.” Mattfeld explained. “Petruchio wears a lot of masks too. Petruchio has no idea how to deal with Kate. So he is throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. So I take that and see a guy who doesn’t have a clue but is pretending in front of everybody else that he’s got it.”
“I never wanted to play her because I thought that wasn’t me,” Betsy admitted. “I always thought she was a tall woman, commanding presence, with a big personality. But whenever I’m afraid of something that means I should probably do it. So now I am finding that there’s no reason that Katherine can’t be small and mighty.”
As a married couple who are working together as leads in this production, the duo expressed how that experience has been and how their relationship has added to there acting abilities in this production.
“The trust we have with each other it is so easy to work together, especially in a play like this,” Mugavero smiled. “Working with someone who I have a family with and an inherent trust with, it made us find more fun.”
“In addition to the fact that I am working with my wife,” Mattfeld stated, “I am also working with my favorite actress. It is really nice, this addition to the personal thing is the professional thing. I lucked out on both.”
“Same,’ added Mugavero. “I am honored to work with Quinton, he is such a good comedian and he inspires me to do better.”
The Taming of the Shrew opens first and opening night is just in a couple days. The couple expressed their excitement and what they hope audiences will take away, after seeing this classic Shakespeare play.
“I always so want people to leave the theatre after seeing a Shakespeare play and go 'I enjoyed that.' I don’t want them to say it was boring and I didn’t understand it. I want them to know that we have amazing smart actors in this show who translate the text to the audience really well. We have a great director who has crafted a story that is really fun. My goal is to have an enjoyable Shakespeare experience because I feel that people are afraid of it.”
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| Quinn Mattfeld and Betsy Mugavero |
But they are not done yet. They have an entire other production going on that opens the following day As You Like It opens on Saturday, February 23rd and is being directed by Mattfeld, with Mugavero as the lead Rosalind. And keep in mind, it is also the same cast of actors, performing two Shakespeare shows at the same time.
“Our cast is awesome” Mugavero smiled. “The same actors that are in The Taming of the Shrew and also in As You Like It. So when audiences come to the plays they get a chance to see them play two completely different roles, two different eras, two different design concepts, two different plays! It is really cool we love the idea of a company of actors like Shakespeare did where everyone plays different roles in every show.”
As You Like It is based around the character Rosalind who is the daughter of Duke Senior. Duke Frederick overthrows Senior and banishes him and Rosalind from the court. Frederick’s daughter, Celia, is friends with Rosalind and convinces her to run away and escape persecution into the forest. Together they flee and Rosalind dresses up as a man named Ganymede and Celia disguises as a poor lady, Aliena. A man named Orlando is in love with Rosalind and is also hiding in the forest from his older brother. Rosalind crosses paths with Orlando, but as a man in her disguise.
“She is so brave,” Mugavero explained about Rosalind. “She is in the forest, the man she loves comes and instead of changing she doesn’t. She wears her disguise and decides to challenge him and his love Rosalind to see if he really loves her as much as he says he does. She is in an oppressed society where woman aren’t allowed to have a voice. But as soon as she puts on the male clothes then she passes as a male and she suddenly has conversations with people that she would never be allowed to talk to before. Through that, she gets to discover herself.”
Mattfeld is acting in The Taming of the Shrew but is the director for As You Like It. It is a regular challenge to switch roles like this but an even harder one while the plays are in rehearsals and production at the same time.
“It is mental gymnastics,” laughed Mattfeld. “On stage, I am responsible for my part of the story from the inside, and as a director, I am responsible for the whole story from the outside. It requires mental dexterity but it is good. It is nice to have a show where I am sitting in the audience watching and then one where I am actually doing.”
He further explained what appealed to him about the concept of As You Like It that made him want to direct it. “It really is a play that is divided in half between the court and the forest,” Mattfeld explained. “It is supposed to be that everyone goes from the court, the bad place, to the forest, the good place, and everything is solved. However, Shakespeare makes the court a place of too many rules and the forest a place of no rules. Which just makes things more complicated and it doesn’t solve anything. It is a complicated story and there are so many puzzle pieces to put together. So I thought it would be a really interesting challenge to direct and I think it will be a really cool experience for our audiences to see.”
This is the first time Mattfeld has directed while his wife was in the cast. They expressed how it has been fun and interesting because they get to challenge each other but also make each other better. Mattfeld stressed how he believes it is important to have creative tension, that way the best results can come from the discussions and trial and error.
“Rosalind is really challenging,” expressed Mugavero. “It is an exercise for me on holding interest for the audience and keeping them engaged in what Rosalind is achieving and going for. I love her I am inspired by her and it is a gift for me to get to play her. I want audiences to take away that you are not defined by anyone, you get to make your own roles because that’s what Rosalind does. Shakespeare really gives us an opportunity to see people pursuing what they want with all of their heart and with every bit of themselves. And that’s gotta inspire people.”
With versatile, talented casts and the words of Shakespeare, both of these shows should inspire with their own messages for audiences to take away. And I couldn’t put it better than Mattfeld, “the great thing about Shakespeare is, I don’t think there is a message that doesn’t end with a question mark.”
CLICK HERE for more information on both of these shows and to purchase tickets
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