The Taming of the Shrew

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The Taming of the Shrew

In taking on the task of directing The Taming of the Shrew, Gregory Doran followed in a long line of directors that were faced with the challenge of how to mount one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The main issue of the play is how to deal with the brutal treatment of Katharine by Petruchio. It is male domination of the female through violence and starvation that eventual breaks Kate's will and tames her. The interpretive gesture reserved to the director is to decide how completely Kate becomes obedient to Petruchio and if she actually falls in love with him. There is also the general attempt to soften the harshness of the text through performance, using irony to soften the painful action taking place on the stage.

Past productions have found varying ways of dealing with these issues to make the play digestible to modern audiences. Great liberty is usually taken with the text in order to justify the misogynistic overtones of the play. One major way of dealing with the issues of the play is done through the inclusion or exclusion of the induction. The play opens with the drunkard Sly being tricked to believe he is royalty, and the entirety of The Taming of the Shrew is a performance for his benefit. Its inclusion thus serves as a framing device that can distance the audience from the difficult parts of the show, as the audience is made conscious of the fact that they are only watching a performance. To exclude the induction makes the action on stage more real, it is not possible to disregard the story as mere theatrics. An example of the application of the induction is the John Barton production in 1960, with Peter O'Toole as Petruchio. The cut scenes featuring commentary from Sly from The Taming of a ...

... middle of paper ...

...o. It is clear that Doran didn't see the production about a battle of the sexes, but instead as a love story between two people who have difficulty relating to all others around them. Both Kate and Petruchio are reconceived as insecure people who are only very strong willed in order to hide their fears of their inadequacies. Doran found motivation for the actions of the play that were based on text to create a unique view of the characters.

Holderness, Graham. Shakespeare in Performance: The Taming of the Shrew. Manchester University Press. Manchester. 1989.

Holland, Peter. English Shakespeare: Shakespeare on the English stage in the 1990s. Cambridge University Press. United Kingdom. 1997.

Spencer, Charles. Funny, touching - and shrewd. London Telegraph. April 2003.

Thompson, Ann. The Taming of the Shrew. Cambridge University Press. United Kingdom. 2003.

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