He will not feed her until she is thankful and trains her as a master would train his dog. He almost starves her of food, dresses her in rags and deprives her of sleep before she becomes the dutiful wife. After the wedding and this reverse psychology, Katherine becomes more tame and obedient than her fair and virtuous sister, Bianca.
I do not, personally, agree with this theory – that forcing a woman, by torturous means, to submit to her husband’s will, is the best way to ensure domestic tranquillity.
This play was staged on a proscenium arch stage and the set was that of many doors in all shapes and sizes, which are cleverly used to create the various scenes throughout the play. A proscenium arch stage was suitable for this performance because it is easy to give a realistic depiction of a place using a closed stage, and the stage can make use of curtains.
My initial reaction to Alexandra Gilbreath was that she looked as if she had tried too hard to look shrewish, so it was quite unconvincing; although her appearance successfully contrasted with the more conventional prettiness of Eve Myles (her sister, Bianca). Throughout the play Gilbreath proved to be an outstanding actor and worked extremely well on stage with Jasper Bitton. My initial reaction to Jasper Britton was that he seemed like the ideal actor for the role of Petrucio because he had a strong, bold voice, and a figure to match.
Elsewhere, Paul Chahidi played the fantastic role of Hortensio and displayed some wonderfully funny body language in every single scene. When Rory Kinnear, as Tranio, swapped clothes with Lucentio, and tottered around the stage in his master’s too tight, high-heeled shoes, he created great amusement and most of the audience, including myself, were in hysterics.
Also, Ian Gelder, Christopher Godwin and Daniel Hawksford were extremely hard to fault as Baptista, Gremio and Lucentio respectively.
The Taming of the Shrew is nowadays regarded as a ‘difficult’ play because, in this feminist age, it is widely viewed as being offensive to women and it is extremely difficult to dispute this. However, the play was written in a totally different age, for a totally different society, in which values and beliefs were different. Personally, being female, I did not find the play feminally offensive, as Shakespeare gets great comical invention from it. I think the director handled the sexism issue very well. He also draws wonderful comic invention from each and every member of his cast and the production goes at a cracking pace throughout.
Part of this play’s enduring appeal is the banter between the ill-tempered but quick-witted Katherine and her lover Petruchio, but it is the story of the uppity woman who gets taken down a peg that hooked all the audience. The power of that story depends upon our ability to see a gentility beneath the bluster and fiery rage of both battling lovers.
Gregory Doran’s production of Taming of the Shrew has pace and the first scene with Sly has plenty of style and even more humour. I thought that the cast was, in general, well rehearsed and efficiently deployed by the director.
Stephanie Arditti (costume supervisor) and Ashley Holtom (associate costume supervisor) both did a fine job with the cast’s costumes; as did Judith Darracott and Dawn Korner, Glenda Sharp and Sarah Campbell, who made additional costumes. There was a variety of different costumes, all wild and wonderful in their own way. Whilst Bianca was pretty in pink, Katherine was ferocious in ruby red and emerald green – but is toned down to more fair colours in the final scenes to show her new obedient and feminine self. Petrucio wore rich and bold coloured costumes to show his strength, which he used to tame Katherine, the shrew. Baptista also wears rich and bold clothes in this play, like Petrudio, but Baptista’s costumes are brighter to show that he is merry and open, while Petrucio’s costumes are darker as he is more mysterious and secretive.
Other characters with bright, weird and wonderful costumes in this play are Tranio and Gremio. This is to match their humorous and witty characters in the production. I thought that the costumes in this production were brilliant and really suited the characters personalities. If the characters hadn’t moved or said a single word throughout the whole play I would have known who was playing who just by looking at the costumes as they were so suited to the characters.
It was interesting to see how the Royal Shakespeare Company interpreted the costumes because I had no idea what they would be like. I thought that they would be traditional clothes from the Jacobean period, and they were. Though they also could have been modern clothes like in the recent film ’10 Things I Hate About You’ – the modern day equivalent to Shakespeare’s ‘Taming of the Shrew’.
The overall mood of the play relied very much on sound effects and lighting. I noticed that gels were used quite often with the lighting to create the correct mood and atmosphere. (Gels are coloured plastic slides that are inserted in front of the beam of light in order to change the colour of the light.) I thought the lighting worked really well with the life-like sound effects. I noticed that ‘fresnel spots’ were used rather than ‘profile spots’ in this play. This was probably because they give a softer spotlight which is easy to adjust.
The costumes, make-up, set, acting, lighting, sound and staging all worked really well together. Apart from the interval, which I think spoils the atmosphere of every play and production, the mood and atmosphere of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ was not spoilt during the whole performance. This was probably the main objective of the director, and it was achieved. Overall, my feeling about this play is very positive and the production is highly plausible.
I couldn’t fault the Royal Shakespeare Company’s interpretation in any other way than I have already described. I found ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ an outstanding performance which I will not forget and will think of it as one of the best plays I have ever seen; and I have been to see many plays and productions and have also participated in many myself. I do not think there was one weak link in the entire cast of this production.
At the final marriage banquet, Petruchio places a bet on his wife’s new found obedience. The odds are just as certain that you’ve missed some wonderful entertainment if you haven’t seen this play. The acting is as good as the play is convoluted, but would be hard to follow if you don’t understand Shakespearean. I think that I have quite a good understanding of Shakespeare as I have already studied and taken part in Macbeth.
I would recommend anyone and everyone to watch this production of ‘The Taming of The Shrew’ by The Royal Shakespeare Company, and I think the director, actors, production teams, set designers and anyone else involved with this production should be highly congratulated. This is a good production of an excellent play which, though its message may be at odds with our times of feminism, has had a consistent following for several centuries and has lost none of its lustre.
