The Taming of the Shrew

[samvara]

I love our annual summer picnic in the park to see Shakespeare performed. No offence to Shakespeare WA who were doing a great job but I couldn't face watching Kate get tortured. maharetr, cupidsbow, grouchy and I left during the intermission. I'm crossing it off the list of plays I'm willing to see performed; it's a hideous paean to the physical and psychological abuse of women and I don't have the wherewithal to stay and bear it.

Comments

[juliet]

I saw an interesting version of this done by an all-female cast (17th c style production otherwise) in the Globe a few years back. I have major issues with it as a play as well, but that production did feel rather different compared to how it would have been with a mixed or all-male cast. In particular, I remember it fondly for staying exactly on-text for the final speech, but delivering it in such a way as to turn the sense of it around entirely.

I don't think I'd go to see it again, unless perhaps it was a production which was explicitly doing interesting/challenging things with the text.

[samvara]

Good point, I won't write it off completely :)

The actors were doing their (not untalented) best to make this an amusing, interesting play, I just can't ignore the cruelty.

[juliet]

On a totally unconnected note: it looks like you've done something clever & are mirroring comments from LJ across to here -- is that the case? Is that from running the importer (i.e. does it do the Right Thing with crossposts?)?

[samvara]

I'm running the importer every now and then to haul in the comments - it's Doing The Right Thing.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

Hey, and if you left during the interval you missed the most offensive parts! : )

I performed in this play at the end of 2008 (despite the director of this current version claiming no one's performed it in Perth in 10 years - erm... wrong.) and it's a horrid play in a modern context. Actually there were a lot of people way back in Shakespeare's day who found it a bit much. John Fletcher even wrote a sequel, The Tamer Tamed, which tried to balance things out a bit.

I'm about as big a fan of Shakespeare's plays as you can get, and I honestly don't think The Taming of the Shrew is a play worth staging any more.

[psycho-tabby.livejournal.com]

Ha! I could have sworn I had only seen it a few years ago (but somehow it didn't seem as offensive then, maybe I wasn't as aware of the context then).

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much where I'm at - although a friend saw it at the Globe a few years back done with an all female cast which made it interesting.

Do you think it would be possible to perform this in a way that was investigative/challenging?

[angriest.livejournal.com]

Sure, there always is.

The version I have read about that I liked the most was that the whole play runs the way it does on the page, then at the very very end Petrucchio and Kate meet at the edge of town, divide the dowry 50/50, high-five and go their separate ways, and the entire play was one big scam.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

That would have worked!

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

While I didn't leave, I have to say I was pretty damn creeped out by Othello a couple of months ago, with its underlying message that it is tragic that Othello is tricked in to murdering his wife when she didn't commit adultery, but if she had done it, murdering her would be perfectly reasonable.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

I've never watched Othello, although I know the rough storyline... some things don't age well!

[psycho-tabby.livejournal.com]

Probably good idea. It just got worse. I kept hoping that she would hit him over the head with a wine bottle, or manage to goal him into a fight where he would die messily and she would rule after all. I think if your updating the play to introduce new place names you could fiddle with the core of it a bit more to give her more control and cunning. The end just made me sick.

I think I could watch something if it was reversed, as in the mother wants to get rid of her 30yr old belligerent drunk son, so the gal has to whip him into shape and make him presentable and a nice human being. And in the end he is better of for it (but not a firigging slave)

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

I think this play should not be performed if you can't do something really new - it's not even as if she's leaving an OK home environment :(

[angriest.livejournal.com]

They updated what?!

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

They updated all the place names... Petruchio and Lucentio and from Melbourne and have come to 'do' Northbridge :p

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I can not describe how angry things like that make me.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

Now I wanna ask if you're the angriest :p

*ducks*

[psycho-tabby.livejournal.com]

They changed the place names, so that they had just arrived in 'Northbridge', and had arrived from 'Melbourne' and made jokes about people coming from Mandurah, or Bunbury, or people heading up north to Broome.

(Hey I'm sorry if suggesting they change bits of Shakespeare is sacrilege, I'm pretty much a newbe in relation to theatre)

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's sacrelige - I once co-directed a production of Richard III where I removed an entire scene and replaced it with a more dramatically interesting one. I just think some things are unnecessary - like replacing Padua with Northbridge. : )

[lady-niav.livejournal.com]

Yep don't blame you. I saw a video of it when I was in uni and I was horrified and sickened. I never want to see it again.

I'm interested by the comment that some people back in the day found it a bit much - Angriest can you elaborate?

[cricketk.livejournal.com]

Yup. I couldn't face watching any of it.

[bannie.livejournal.com]

Ooh were you there on Friday night? I was there for that one too. Don't worry, you didn't miss much. The wind picked up in the last 30 minutes and you could barely hear Kate anyway.

[e-dan.livejournal.com]

I watched 'Five have fun in the forest with faeries' (aka Midsummer Night's Dream) in Melbourne last week. Hmm. I suspect I'll be willing to forgive Bill's sexism in his tragedies for a while yet, but in his comedies I think I'm over it. Robin Goodfellow was very cute though.