Kiss me, clown: Five acts of Shakespeare in three rings

In a Ringling Bros. world, swaggering Petruchio tries to tame the fiery Kate while, all around them, clowns spill out of trunks or trip over their big shoes.

Director Russ Marchand, a former big-top clown, invites Shakespeare to run off with the circus in this antic, pie-in-the-face presentation of “The Taming of the Shrew” by Insurgo Theater Movement in Fullerton. He plays the material strictly for laughs, and that’s OK, for the most part, since he’s working with an early and particularly lighthearted Shakespearean text.

The Three Stooges, ancient Roman comedies and various pirate adventures also seem to have served as models for Marchand and his designers. The action erupts in front of three houses that are rendered in the flat, black-and-white outlines of a children’s coloring book. Adding color to the scene are Jessica Beane’s bright costumes, which, depending on the wearer’s personality type, borrow details from Elizabethan England, the circus or Errol Flynn movies.

Dressed like a pirate, Petruchio (John Beane) struts into Padua and is soon seeking treasure as he woos Kate (Kimberly Fisher), the independent-minded elder daughter of a wealthy family. The town becomes a three-ring circus as he tries to break Kate’s spirit, with full-blown clown acts emerging from a pair of wily servants (Justin Walvoord and Dave Herbalin).

Modern phrases slip into the dialogue (from “Who’s your daddy?” to a snippet of nearby Disneyland’s “Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate’s life for me”), as do well-known lines from other Shakespeare plays.

Some of the laughs are cheap, some honest. Either kind draws a vocal response.

Overall, Marchand is too cavalier about the story’s sexist undertones, and he seems to value comic use of rubber chickens over effective employment of Shakespeare’s language. But he proves that Shakespeare doesn’t always have to be treated with awe. Go ahead, slap a big, red clown nose on the guy.

*

‘The Taming of the Shrew’

Where: Insurgo Theater Movement at Hunger Artists Theatre, 699-A S. State College Blvd., in College Business Park, Fullerton

When: Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.

Ends: Jan. 26

Price: $10 with reservation; $12 at the door

Contact: (714) 517-7798

Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes