This show.
I have a small part. I play a servant to the lead character, Petruchio. My character's name is Grumio.
I like this picture of some Grumio from some version of this play.
But if you, like me, prefer to think in terms of romantic comedies for teens, I am this guy:
That would be David Krumholtz as Michael in the mid-90's classic, Ten Things I Hate About You, starring the late, great Heath Ledger, and the still-alive, still totally mediocre Julia Stiles. The parallel doesn't really work, because Warner Bros., in their infinite wisdom, made Heath/Patrick/Petruchio a loner, and Grumio is his assistant. So there isn't really a Grumio. But my future husband Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is kind of like Lucentio, has this guy, who is kind of like Hortensio, but also kind of a Grumio. Like a second, or a man-at-arms, or a goofy sidekick. Whatever, we'll go with it, because I like this guy and it makes me feel better about my part.
I'm struggling with it right now. In continuing with my grand tradition of always having to play male characters who speak in prose (a tradition I'm ready to see the end of: it has come up in auditions lately that maybe I can't do verse, and that is not true, and scary to me), I am, once again, a boy (see above). But I play it as a girl. However, there are problems with that. In the text, Grumio has lots of references to man, men, and there are lines that he/she has to overhear that disparage women.
I am supposed to play loyalty to Petruchio at all costs, but as a girl, and as a strong character like Grumio, it strikes me as very disengenuous that she's ok to hear her sex lambasted, and consents to the treatment of Katherine, the shrew. It makes sense to me in a way that Grumio is loyal, but not blindly supportive of Petruchio. All of his/her asides become passive aggressive comments, which is such a female thing to do. Not condoning, not condemning, but allowing things to happen and commenting on them from the outside. That also fits in a sense of representing women and the lower classes: that they have to be outside the action, but have intelligence which belies their position. That's what I'm trying to bring to it. Snarky, wise, a good servant but one who speaks her mind, often to her and her master's peril. However, in order to fit the traditional idea of Grumio (that I'm not attached to, but that the play moves towards), I have to want to die fighting for Petruchio. The male influence is in the text, and I have to honor it while still subverting it.
I dont' want to be a difficult actor, but I also feel it's a mistake to make the choice to cast a girl in this part (because it is not one that changes with no ramifications...it IS a male part), and then to pretend I'm not a girl, or to pretend I'm a girl with no female instincts. I think there's the opportunity to create a very different, strong, interesting character, but that means that some pre-conceived notions have to go away. And that's hard when you only have a few weeks.
Women are different from men. I read the play differently because I'm a girl. It's difficult to know how to play this (although this is, what, the fifth male turned female Shakespeare role I've had to do). Right now all of this is making it difficult for me to enjoy it. I have to find something I love about Grumio. That's a huge challenge for me. If I don't like a character, and I have never been a huge fan of Grumio's, it's hard to get inside and play them fully, to make them win their scenes. I had this problem with Olga in 'Three Sisters', but I came to like her, and to see her as vital to the play. Hopefully I can get there with this character. But right now, it feels much like David Krumholtz must have felt as he drove his bike right over the cliff.
Man, that movie is awesome.
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