July Review: The Taming of the Shrew

This play, if interpreted literally, can be hard to read. A harsh, bitter, headstrong woman is tricked into marriage with a man who is interested in her because of her fortune. He then proceeds to completely embarrass her at the wedding by showing up drunk in horrible clothes and doesn't even let her go to the reception. This is followed by a day or two of no sleep and little food which forces her to bow to his will and call a man a maiden and noon night in order to visit her family again.

However, Tony Tanner's Prefaces to Shakespeare come to the rescue yet again. Rather than encouraging a feminist, angry reading of the play, he points out Petruchio's redemptive actions. Kate in some ways is trapped in this shrewish character that she may have put on as a response to her father's favoritism of her sister Bianca. Petruchio had no need to transform her into a likable character just to get her money. Since he does, it seems he has come to care for her by the play's end. In Tanner's view, his domestic "torture"--beating his servants, throwing food, tearing apart the bed--show her what married life would be like if she remained a cat and not Kate. Reading it from this perspective, I empathized with Kate and noticed her lines in Act II: "What, will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see she is your treasure, she must have a husband; I must dance barefoot on her wedding-day, and for your love to her lead apes in hell." Clearly she was miserable--her father wanted to be rid of her but because she was so miserable no one wanted her. Then along comes someone who allows her to become a real person by being willing to bend to someone else's will.

The play reminds me of The Philadelphia Story--Katharine Hepburn's character could be viewed as another shrew. She had married and divorced her Petruchio (Cary Grant) because he didn't meet her standards. She too was harsh and inflexible, though maybe not so violent, and had to learn to be "yar" as she says in the movie: "easy to handle, quick to the helm, fast, right." I think as a society we overemphasize our rights and needs and esteem stubbornness and a rigid demand of our own way which can only make relationships harder. Marriage is not about seeking your way but what is best for both, which requires being "yar", being flexible, compromising rather than digging in your heels.

In addition, Taming of the Shrew is great to watch. The exchanges between Kate and Petruchio are both sharp and funny and the play as a whole calls for a lot of physical comedy. The only remaining off note I find is the servant who deliberately misunderstands what others say--this type of comic dialogue occurs in other Shakespeare plays as well and I just don't find it that funny.

April Reviews

I think reading Richard III in 10th grade was what made me realize how fun Shakespeare can be. As a class, we read the play aloud, taking various parts and stumbling over Elizabethan English. But somewhere along the way (probably in Act I), we all got it. Richard was read by a goofy jokester who enjoyed teasing us girls and we enjoyed teasing him back. So, he was the perfect candidate for the various exchanges of insults between Richard and Anne and Richard and Margaret--"never hung poison on a fouler toad," "hateful with'red hag", "bottled spider," etc. Add to that the drama and larger than life action and I understand completely why my teacher chose to have us read this play over some of the milder comedies.

Reading it again, after having read some more history as well as Sharon Kay Penman's The Sunne in Splendour (a pro-Richard novel), I spot some gaps. For instance, 3 Henry VI left off with Edward IV newly crowned, a new father to Prince Edward, and Henry VI recently murdered by Richard. Richard III has the hero villain wooing Anne over Henry's corpse while his brother Edward is ailing and there is talk of the younger son of the king growing taller than the older who speaks as if he's at least 8 years old. So, how long did Henry lie dead in state--8 years? Also, Anne resists Richard as her husband and father-in-law's killer yet she was never married. Also, I find it a little more incredible that she would accept him if he were the monster he appears here.

I've heard the argument that Richard was depicted as such a monster by Shakespeare and his sources to paint the Tudor takeover as a deliverance from the horrors of civil war (Yorks vs. Lancaster) and power-hunger gone mad. Clearly, he was not completely the ogre that he appears but the mystery of the princes in the tower isn't completely answered by the pro or anti Richard sides.

Nevertheless, Shakespeare's play is more than propaganda--it's myth, as Peter Saccio suggests in Shakespeare's English Kings. It's an exploration of evil, of conscienceless man. He begins as an actor and ends as a madman. And it's still thrilling to read and watch.

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