A scene from The Taming of the Shrew at Gamm Theatre. Front from left are Jeanine Kane, Ralph Stokes and Tony Estrella. In back from left are Tom Gleadow, David Rabinow and Casey Seymour Kim.

Peter Goldberg

There are those who view Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew as a misogynist rant, a tale of a head-strong woman forced to obey her husband’s wishes.

But Peter Sampieri doesn’t see it that way. Sampieri is directing the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm’s production of Shrew, which opens today in previews.

To his eye, the popular comedy is much more complicated than that.

“Certainly the play comes with a lot of baggage,” said Sampieri. “People think it’s a misogynist play. But I don’t read it that way.

“In acting out the role of being a good housewife, she’s actually gaining power.”

Sampieri is referring to the feisty Kate, who has been the subject of adaptations for opera, stage screen and musical theater.

She is the shrew of the play’s title, the ill-tempered lass whom gold-digging Petruchio is determined to wed for her money. And that is good news for the several suitors of Kate’s sister, sweet-natured Bianca, who can’t get married until Kate, played by Gamm veteran Jeanine Kane, finds a husband.

Petruchio, who behaves like a madman at his own wedding, whisks Kate off to his bachelor pad and proceeds to break her will. In a famous scene, she agrees that the sun is the moon and vice versa.

But Sampieri doesn’t read the play as a story of a domineering husband who gets his wife to “shut the heck up.” It’s more a tale of sacrifices made for love, he said. Petruchio, who at first seems interested in nothing more than money, in the end falls in love with Kate. The two, said Sampieri, turn out to be the happiest couple in all of Shakespeare.

“I think people who are reading the play as misogynistic are reading it on a very surface level,” said Sampieri, “and in a very reductive way, reducing it to something that is very easy, and not examining the complex relationship of men and women.”

Sampieri, who directed the Gamm’s recent production of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman, has done a little tinkering with the play. In the interest of keeping things “lean and mean,” he has dropped the whimsical introduction in which the main play about a shrew is presented to a drunken tinker who is told by practical jokers that he is in fact a great lord.

Sampieri has also moved the action from Italy to an Italo-American neighborhood somewhere in the Northeast circa the early 1960s, “before metrosexuals, when men were men.” Petruchio, who is being played by the Gamm’s artistic director Tony Estrella, crashes his own wedding on a vintage Vespa scooter.

To Sampieri, the updating only helps the audience to recognize the characters and figure out their place in this social satire. Just as in Shakespeare’s time players tended to wear contemporary garb and make asides to topics of the day, Sampieri has set out to use conventions that modern-day audiences will be familiar with.

Music sung by the servants is taken from the top-40 charts of the early 1960s, tunes like “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,” and “Leader of the Pack.”

Kate’s father, Baptista Minola, is a big shot in the neighborhood, someone whose wealth comes from uncertain sources. Could be the mob, could be the cement business.

Lucentio, the well-to-do student who courts Bianca, is easily recognizable as an all-American jock of the varsity-sweater type. His servant Tranio is something of a nerd.

“We’re trying to find ways,” said Sampieri, “to make the play and the characters — the way they would have been in the time of Shakespeare — instantly recognizable to us.”

And for this production, the intimate Gamm has been reconfigured. Normally, the seats are arranged in the three-quarter round. For this show they flank a street leading to the two sites in the play — Baptista’s imposing brownstone, and Petruchio’s run-down pad.

“When you walk into the theater,” said Sampieri, “you’ve walked into the neighborhood. We’ve put the audience in the space, where actors will be running up and down the aisles.”

Sampieri is hoping to bring out shades of gray in a play that is often viewed as black and white. He said the play suggests that everyone, including the affable Bianca, has a shrewish streak, and that everyone can use some taming.

It’s a lot more complicated than it appears at first blush, he said, which is a good thing. When romantic comedies are neat and tidy, they tend to come across as “cloying,” said Sampieri.

“I think this is a thinking man’s romantic comedy,” said Sampieri. “I think what’s fabulous about this play is it’s not easy.

“Petruchio thinks he’s going to have a easy time with Kate and it’s not easy. And even with the sun and moon speech, it’s not clear that he’s won.”

Petruchio the prankster has to learn to take things seriously, said Sampieri. He has to learn to make room in his life for Kate.

“It’s a play about the way love humbles us,” said Sampieri. “It makes us realize what’s important and what’s important to make sacrifices for.”

The Taming of the Shrew opens today in previews and runs through June 15 at the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre, 172 Exchange St., Pawtucket. Tickets are $20-$34. Call (401) 723-4266 or log on to www.arttixri.com.

cgray@projo.com