‘Shrew’ plays it straight, so watch out Robert W. Bethune Middletown Times Herald Record December 16, 1994 FLORIDA—We’ve got it wrong about the test of time. Time doesn't test works of art and literature; it is those works that test the times. Shakespeare knew that the actors show the body of the time his form and pressure, or words to that effect, and not the other way around. For example, “Measure for Measure” revolves around issues of chastity that seem to mean less to us with every passing day, while “The Taming of the Shrew,” being staged at the First Presbyterian Church of Florida, revolves around an issue of feminine submission that has gained a great deal of form and pressure in recent times.      Feminists beware: They’re playing it straight. Ron De Fesi’s Petruchio is as cocky, arrogant, flamboyant, violent and domineering as any traditionalist could wish, and Sandra Riley’s Katherine is as waspish, saucy, cross-grained, proud and, well, shrewish as anyone is likely to want to tolerate for a fairly lengthy evening in the theater. They play no cute games with the famous ending in which Katherine recommends that wives “place your hands beneath your husband’s foot.”      And yet the upshot of what we see, in this quite straightforward interpretation directed by Ron De Fesi, is two quite unbearable people becoming bearable through each other. It works for them, folks, and while this exact prescription may not by the potion for every ill, the overall effect of the treatment has a good deal to recommend it. There is more than gender at play here; we must take off the blinders and look afresh to meet the test this play puts on the times.      The show offers first-rate design. The wide, shallow architectural set is beautifully painted in Renaissance faux-marble motifs that set off the colorful costumes to their full brilliance, aided by Mark Lewis’ simple, clean lighting. The stage design sets up the play in mood and period while also giving a modest stylistic tribute to the roots of the play in the Italian theater of the age.      Shakespeare draws his two principal portraits against the background of a dozen or so other characters pulled more or less directly from the commedia dell’arte. Carmine Garritano gives a game leg and a shaky voice to the ridiculous old suitor Gremio, while David Lorello dances and prances through the trickster servant Tranio.      Denise Schneider puts a welcome edge into Bianca, Katherine’s younger sister, who would be pallid without it. The daughters must have gotten it from their mother, their father, Baptista, is long-suffering and henpecked in Charlie DeFesi’s portrayal.      Joe Burns does a dashing, handsome Hortensio, but the Elvis bit needs work. And, if the members of the Florida Presbyterian Church want to see their minister as a drunken sot, they have their chance; Robert Reader is very amusing as the ale-swilling Christopher Sly.      All in all, the women are strong, the suitors are handsome, the servants are clever, and all the dogs are above average.