30 days of Shakespeare: Day 11 - Your least favourite play

[nwhyte]

No difficulty in choosing here: The Taming of the Shrew. The basic storyline is simply too unpleasant: Katherina, obviously a very unhappy person, is intimidated into submission by a bloke called Petruchio who appears out of nowhere and for no apparent reason decides to marry her. There is lots of beating of servants; how hilarious

Comments

[redfiona99]

The only version of Taming of the Shrew that's ever worked for me is the Shakespeare Re:Told one, where the shrew is resolutely untamed and instead rises resplendent, and they give Petrucchio something other than 'is obnoxious' to do.

[slemslempike]

I saw a wonderful production at the RSC a few years back, with Michelle Gomez. It properly showed how she became broken down, and it wasn't funny any more, she wasn't herself and it was very very creepy.

[trepkos]

I believe some productions have managed to somehow, by great acting, make it look as if it was actually a tacit conspiracy between Katherina and Petruchio, but I have unfortunately never been able to see anything in the text to support this interpretation.

[mizkit]

I love Shrew because it was the first Shakespeare I saw, at age 5, but what I actually love are adaptations of it; my take-away at age five was what became a life-long dislike of the name "Kate" because Kate was such a miserable person.

O the irony, that I am now Cate in Ireland, because half the country's accent turns "Catie" into "Cathy" to my ear, and I hate Cathy even more than Cate.

[bopeepsheep]

This article and comments make interesting reading - some of the reasons I actually like Shrew are in there. (Purely abstractly, it's got some very good writing in it, and it's very quotable - memorable lines.) 10 Things I Hate About You takes the sister relationship further, giving it more depth, and also gives Katharine backstory details that explain her apparent shrewishness; and it doesn't hurt that Patrick/Petruchio is very attractively charming and genuinely apologetic when he realises he's hurt her. I also love Kiss Me, Kate (again, with added backstory), and the episode of Moonlighting that played with this. (In fact, the whole show was sparked by the play.)

I think I agree with the commenter on the Guardian article who says there absolutely has to be a spark between K&P for any of it to work at all. The falconry reference is also interesting, I hadn't heard that one before. It's not a good reason for P's behaviour but it does make sense in context. (The KMK take on that part is a lot better!)