There were many different size doors some were raised higher than others but were manly placed centre stage and up stage it was sort of a Rostrum but with doors. I think this was not only done to show the different rooms or to give the impression of peoples homes but maybe to also give the effect of different levels. The doors stayed on the stage for most of the play.
There was a ladder which took the actors on to railings which made a sort of raised platform this was used to enter and exit to a wing upstairs like when Kate was in Petruchios house for the first time and they climbed the ladder and used the platform as a sort of upstairs where the bedroom was supposed to be. This was raised for most of the performance and only lowered when the scene was in Petruchios' house.
Another way the actors entered and exited the stage was by a stage rake that was up stage centre and turned into the left wing nearly everyone used it and it was the main exit from the stage. There was also a Trap door that was used during the play I think only once by one of Petruchios servants when he was coming in to sort out the house for the arrival of Petruchio and his new wife.
There were only a few scene changes throughout the play but most of the time to change the scene the stage was just strikd. The biggest scene change was when the scene changed from the street to petruchios's house were the railings and the flying scenery of inside a house was lowered and all the doors on the floor were taken off in a blackout. The other main scene change was during the interval when the scene changed to a park; the cyclorama changed from reflected water to a summer day and a swing was lowered to centre stage.
Sound was also used to display the emotions in each scene. The type of sound was mainly special effects for things like thunder and birds tweeting in the park scene.
The orchestra also contributed to the sound before and during the play, it was nothing too evident, which didn’t really give much of an impact which is a good thing.
During the play the stage was lit using foot lights and floodlights, which made it quite bright. The only times when the scene was not light was either when the effect of night was wanted or in Petrushios’ when him and Kate arrived for the first time to do this all that was done was that the lights were dimmed lights where dim. Maybe this was because the director wanted to show the difference between the light house that Kate had grown up in and the dark house she was now forced to live in.
There was a few times in which light effects were used, for example when there was three blackouts one after the other to show the hours gone past when Petruchio said that he controlled the time. The best use of light effects was the storm outside Petruchios’ house, which was very effective, and also an amazing contrast compared to the scene with Bianca in the park, which had a completely different mood that was well conveyed by the lighting used in both scenes. The play wouldn’t have been as good if only the house lights were used.
The costumes in the play reflected the character and his or her personality, for example Kate wore a wrecked and torn low quality dress and Bianca wore a high quality gold gown. In plays such as ‘The Prince and the Pauper’ what people wear is very important in this play an example of this is when Lucentio swaps cloths with his servant so no one would know who he was.
I knew what sort of a role a person played. If it was either a rich person or a poor person by what type of cloths they were wearing for example if some one was wearing ripped cloths that were dark in colour and dirty then you know that they are either poor or a servant like Petruchios servant and if someone was wearing a shirt, hat, short trousers, tights and clean shoes with maybe even a sword then straight away you could tell that the person was wealthy and privileged like Hortensio. The orchestra were even in costume and dressed in plain grey robes.
I understood the play to a certain extent because I did an abbreviated version of ‘Taming of the Shrew’ with my drama class in school. Compared to the one I saw in the theatre and the one I did at school it was almost completely different. The school play would have been a lot better if we had seen the play before the production, if we had then maybe the class could have gotten a better understanding of the characters and the main plot of the story, as I think the play we saw could have done this.
Although the theatre production was a lot better, I thought that the character development of Lucentio, Gremio, and Hortensio was a lot more thought out in the one I did with the school and in the theatre production they were a bit characterless and bland. The characters of Kate and Petruchio were a lot better in the theatre they were exciting and competent.
My favourite character in the play was Kate, I admire her because it must have really hurt her throat screaming and yelling for most of the play and also that Kate’s character was the one that in my opinion was more developed, the one that stood out from the other main characters and the best acted. I also liked the way that her character gradually changed through out the play and not many actors can carry it out as well as she did. The change of Kates' character was obvious during the play but the actors change wasn’t. Generally I believed the choice of cast was very well done
My favourite part of the play I thought was when Petruchio and Kate met for the first time in the play and the actors showed really well that it was love at first sight. It was my favourite part of the play because it was filled with humour, Romance, attraction and physical humour like when Kate is banging her foot against the door shouting to her father to let her back in the house.
Although as a whole I thought the audience really enjoyed the performance and I liked the way the director slipped in a few modern jokes but in my opinion I believe that the director could have made the play to suit different types of audience for teenagers and the older type of audience. The director could have done this by maybe shortening the play because I thought the pace of the play was time-consuming and long-winded and some parts of the play were even quite dull. He could have even either changed the language of the play from Shakespearian to modern or changed the costume from old to modern or even both to make the play more appealing to the younger audience.
Overall I enjoyed the performance thurally and it helped me to understand drama to a higher extent.
