Director Mel Brooks once said that sex is like pizza; even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for sex comedies. It takes a deft touch to balance the humorous with the taboo. Come on too strong and things can get juvenile, but shy away and the jokes suddenly lose their teeth.

Bear & Co.’s production of The Taming of the Shrew opens the way you’d expect a modern staging of a Shakespearean play to. Actors in tights, capes and frilly shirts bounce pithy lines off one another while giving the audience the necessary exposition.