Any director bold enough to tackle Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew is faced with a pretty big problem. The plot – and title – depicts a headstrong woman who is “tamed” by a man into submissiveness. Whatever the Bard’s intention, his script plays on the dichotomy between two sisters – one perfectly docile, the other the titular shrew. Along the way, Katherine is subjected to what we would now call verbal abuse by her undesired husband and master, Petruchio. And to top it off, it’s a comedy not a tragedy – so the audience is supposed to laugh. But what’s funny about domestic abuse?
Jude Christian’s new production is hyper aware of this. In his play, characters wear clown-like outfits and act through puppet versions of themselves, all under the gaze of a horribly off-white inflatable bear who makes up the entire backdrop – all as if to emphasise the absurdity of Shakespeare’s play (actually a play within a play, a brand spanking new conceit in Shakespeare’s time, revolutionary to contemporary theatre goers).
The prologue sees Christopher Sly stumble on from the back of the Globe’s standing audience, sloshing his beer across amiable, Shakespeare-loving audience members and encouraging the crowd to sing along to Tom Jones’ Delilah. An altercation ensues, with Sly shouting at one woman “go back to your country” – an uncomfortable moment that is then entirely brushed over and race not addressed by the play.
The woman runs on stage and – no shit! – it turns out to be our headstrong Katharine. The play is thus performed… As a framing device it’s not particularly profound and neither script nor interpretation returns to Sly at the end, so the effect is limited.
The production paints Petruchio as a two dimensional bad guy, equipping him with an (inflatable) weapon and making him violent from the onset. We watch him pound his elf-like servant Grumio half to death in his opening scene. If you’ve seen 10 Things I Hate About You (an interpretation of TotS), this is very much not Heath Ledger singing I Love You, Baby to Kat (despite the actors actually looking relatively similar). Also in stark contrast to the 90s romcom classic, this play depicts Katherine a quivering wreck by the end of the play, hardly able to spit out the lines of her final, subservient monologue in which she reprimands her fellow women for not being docile enough.
Bianca acting through a near-lifesize puppet of herself is a clever presentation of the idea that Bianca’s ‘angelic’ identity is a performed ideal of womanhood.
Christian is astute to not just focus on Katherine. When Bianca, the “angel”, appears she is dragging along – whimsically, for that is her womanly nature and accompanying adverb to all her actions – an almost-life-size doll version of herself. Bianca acting through the puppet is a clever presentation of the idea that Bianca’s identity is a constructed version of womanhood. She is tied to the puppet for most of the play, demonstrating how she is bound to a feminine ideal rather than incorporating it herself. But the magic is broken when she leaves the puppet behind to jump into bed with Lucentio – why? Has true love liberated her from the patriarchy? Surely that’s not the message Christian intended. Perhaps it’s ironic – but that seems a bit of a cop out.
The imagery of a puppet is also important in the original play. Petruchio’s servant, Grumio, first suggests his master would marry a “puppet or an aglet baby” if given enough gold. Katherine protests “Belike you mean to make a puppet of me” when being dressed by her husband. Petruchio at times also voices himself through a puppet – a grim version of himself – presumably presenting his inhibiting of masculine ideals. But it’s unclear why Gremio and Hortensio have huge, grotesque male puppet faces strapped to their torsos for the entire play, nor why the sisters’ father has clown feet.
Other conceits are introduced but not fully interrogated. The set is dominated by a huge inflatable teddy bear holding a stone. Characters enter and exit through its crotch; representative of what, exactly? Katherine emerges as a furries-esque fairground shrew in the final scene, but then sheds the outfit at a seemingly arbitrary moment. You want to tear your hair out in frustration! Why? The play leans on the idea of the surreal without fully engaging with the repercussions of its absurdities. Echoing Shakespeare’s often childishly slapstick humour, all the wackiness is enjoyable and fun for those who like potty humour, but in a play mired in such controversy it is galling for its lack of ultimate engagement with the imagery it introduces.
The number of characters who switch roles and disguise themselves is tiresome in the original play – though undoubtedly had more weight and significance in early modern England when social hierarchies were far more concrete. Without the luxury of fast fashion and individualism, it might well be far more exciting to watch a ‘manservant’ play the role of a wealthy gentleman. In this version, it becomes a bit of a bore. The bland, soap opera-esque music served absolutely no purpose, only obstructing vital moments of speech.
The play wants to indulge in the comedic moments at the heart of The Taming of the Shrew, but feels obliged to comment on its misogyny. But couldn’t the audience be trusted to come to those conclusions on their own?
Don’t get me wrong – there is lots to praise in this production. The acting is superb. Yasmin Taheri as Lucentio stands out with an impressively physical performance: at one point Lucentio throws himself on the floor in love, demonstrating the emotion’s ridiculous excesses. Eloise Secker’s interpretation of Grumio is winning in his dual wiliness and obedience, his conceding moments of empathy with Katherine being an interesting and convincing twist.
The tension between the script’s limitations and Christian’s attempt to superimpose a modern perspective are, eventually, overwhelming.
The actors in the play within a play bubble with what is presumably irritation at the constructed gender norms (an idea with wings but which never flies). Occasionally, this erupts into direct confrontation. During the final scene, it all gets too much for Katharina who cries, suddenly, “can’t this all stop!,” at which point a woman who has been reading a magazine in the corner of the stage whips out a gun and shoots the character playing the director (the character being an invention by Christian). Meta moments like this are a little forced, lacking the requisite build-up. Worse, the characters just carry on brightly as if nothing has happened. Eh?
Without the crutch of a distinct time period or setting, Christian’s play is a bit of a mess. It wants to indulge in the comedic moments at the heart of The Taming of the Shrew, but feels obliged to comment on its misogyny. But couldn’t the audience be trusted to come to those conclusions on their own? Sure, Shakespeare’s play is troubling – but theatre is supposed to be uncomfortable. I wanted to sweep all the ludicrous outfits and senseless group dances and grotesque puppet-shirts off the stage and be allowed to interrogate Shakespeare’s lines for myself.