When the fireworks get noisy, the insects get nippy, and the whole neighbourhood drags their fa­vourite stools out onto the parapet for a gossip, summer has truly set in. And with that hot, sticky season, a theatrical tradition: the summer Shakespeare by MADC. Though the annual production had a few wobbly years as a wandering troupe, its home in the beautiful San Anton Gardens truly is part of the  experience, and this year was no different.

Rebecca Camilleri and Jonathan Dunn. Photo: Christine Joan Muscat-Azzopardi

But the question arises: how do you keep the tradition, the nostalgia and the fond memories alive, while still creating a production that is interesting to current audiences? It’s a question that I feel the MADC have struggled with over the past few years – and they are not alone in this on the theatrical scene. How do we wring relevance from old traditions and even older texts?

In part – and this is the part that the MADC have done well this year – you find a fun, energetic cast and you run with it. Although there is always room for tightening, particularly in a cast this size, I found the cast of The Taming of the Shrew to be engaging, bright, and enthusiastic. They looked like they were having a blast, and it came across.

Someone once told me that 90 per cent of good directing is good casting. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but Polly March certainly held up her end here. In particular, the casting of Katerina, the titular shrew herself, and her husband-cum-nemesis Petruchio, was incredibly strong. As the waspish Katerina, Rebecca Camilleri was sharp, witty and demonstrated an uncanny knack for delivering iambic prose as though she’d just thought of it on the spot. Across her, relative newcomer to the Maltese scene Jonathan Dunn looked like he was having the time of his life galloping around the stage in his kilt and putting the ‘rogue’ in ‘brogue’. Much as I love to hate Petruchio, he admittedly grew on me.

While the casting of strong lead actors is always important in any show, I feel that it is doubly so for any production of The Taming of the Shrew. Although scholars have ar­gued for years over the presentation of misogyny and gender roles in this play, today’s more egalitarian and questioning climate make it a more controversial topic than ever. When choosing to tackle the fraught sexual politics of this play, March made a brave choice, and the effective casting and strong chemistry between Camilleri and Dunn help to veer this play away from some of its more troubling overtones.

If the play’s two leads roared with energy, the rest of the cast was not far behind. The play’s pace was helped along by lively performance by other members of the cast, including Laura Best as preening mother Baptista, Jasmine Farrugia as bratty golden child Bianca, and Alexander Gatesy Lewis as her starry-eyed suitor.

If you all open your English literature textbooks and take a look, you might notice that the text of The Taming of the Shrew features a framing device that sets the story as a sort of play-within-a-play. Many productions choose to cut this part of the play, and this one goes down the same route. Instead, March opts for an entirely different ap­proach. A quick glance at the programme sets the play as a local production being held in the fictional Maltese town of Mazbugg, where professionalism is clearly not the order of the day.

Philip Leone Ganado. Photo: Sebio Aquilina

There are forgotten lines, improvised costumes and props of dubious quality. While I was somewhat dubious at first, I did enjoy the Mazbugg concept, but I feel it was not explored enough by the production. The roaring West End success The Play That Goes Wrong was definitely came to mind in the bumbling antics of certain Mazbugg players and backstage  hands. However I don’t feel the device was used well enough to warrant a place in the show. There’s a fine line to tread between adding a joke or two and turning the play into a complete farce, but some of the Mazbugg details needed to be woven into the play a little better. Malfunctioning props feel organic, but someone mistakenly walking across the stage just for the sake of it does not.

However, although our little trip to Mazbugg might not have been entirely necessary, the play was thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. The simple and intimate stage design, beautifully bright mishmash costumes and sheer enthusiasm were certainly enough to keep the audience enthralled and earn in a place as one of my favourite MADC Shakespeare productions.