The Taming of the Shrew

I know this picture is difficult to see, but I think you can open it in a new window to see a larger image...anyways, I wanted to include a picture from the Royal Shakespeare Company's The Taming of the Shrew because this production really is one that escapes mere description. Click here if you want to see a slideshow of other images from the production: http://www.rsc.org.uk/WhatsOn/6633.aspx#

I left the theatre last night absolutely inspired and completely drained. This was not an optimistic interpretation of Taming. While some of the slapstick humor elicited laughs in the first half of the play, the second half stunned the audience with its dark set, numerous pseudo-rape scenes, and a broken Kate. Even in the curtain call, she refused to smile. This was a haunting play.

The Taming of the Shrew is supposedly a comedy about the "taming" of a ruthless, mean wife (Kate) by Petruccio, a man who seems drawn more to the challenge of destroying Kate than loving her. Kate is difficult to understand...is she really just ruthless, or might she be a product of a household in which her younger sister got all of the attention, including her father's unabashed affection? Was she born this way--or made to be this way? What does she really want??

This production didn't care what Kate wanted...or needed. The scenes in Act 4 when Kate is denied food, clothing, and sleep in an effort to "tame" her were dark and dank and suggested she was either in a prison or a brothel. By the end, she did look more like a tamed animal than a human being, and somehow we are supposed to celebrate Bianca's marriage after witnessing how much marriage ruined Kate. But the play doesn't forget the shrew at the end; the longest speech of the play is the one she delivers in the final moments, and her instructions to Bianca and the widow (really the only other two women in this male-dominated play) about the importance of being an obedient wife to an honored husband stopped us all cold. If she was acting in this final scene (a possible reading of this play--she is even more shrewd than her husband), we sure didn't pick up on it. Rather, she was a woman with a broken body and broken spirit who made us all wonder what in the world Shakespeare was thinking or intending when he wrote this play.

A terrible play to consider, but an incredible performance once again by the RSC. The set was brilliant (red-light district bachelor party turned "civilized" Padua) and the actors were even better. It definitely illuminated this play for me.

On a brigter note, I am off to the train station to pick up my wonderful husband!! Next post will be by the two of us! HOORAY!