Taming of the Shrew

[magid]

Tonight I went to the Commonwealth Shakespeare production of Taming of the Shrew on the Common. They've set it in the North End of "Bostonia", and had a fun time making it 50's Italian Boston, including a woman shouting "Anthony!" out a window, and at least one "wicked". Horses became motor scooters, and so on. Fun, entertaining, though not amazing acting, merely good.

Until the plot comes into play. Our Hero comes in, decides to marry Kate based on reports of her looks and her dowry, and pretty much rides roughshod over her to get married in haste. After that, he uses starvation and sleep dep to turn her to his will, comparing it to training a recently-captured bird of prey to the jesses of the hunter. And in the end, she does bend to his will, accepting his dicta above the evidence of her own eyes, giving a boot-licking speech at the end about the woman's role in marriage. Not surprisingly, this left me with a rather bad flavor in my mouth.

I thought about it on the way home, and I still don't like the play's overt messages, at all. It seems to me too over-the-top to work in today's world.

Then I realized that it reminds me more of the relationship in Secretary than anything else. Looked at through those glasses, it makes much more sense, if we can assume a bit more relationship developed than is shown between the protagonists. She is wild, uncontrollable, finding no one a match for her. He comes and stands up to her, and doesn't give up until she accepts the service and care of total sub-space, with the final scene being where she earns her collar, and they live happily ever after, in far better fettle than the other, vanilla couples also recently married. And that explanation I can live with.

I'm not sure whether I'd like to see another production of this play or not.

ETA, 1315 I forgot to mention that last night's performance included open captioning on either side of the stage, and audio descriptions available for the vision-impaired. It helped me to see the captions sometimes, when there was a spate of Italian or an unexpected word. (Plus, they gave titles and performer information about the (canned) music.) /edit


Off-topic: Has anyone used the newly-appeared 'tack' icons yet to keep up with comments/threads?

Comments

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

The notifications feature is perm. accounts only right now. Still very beta. I've been waiting for this feature since I got on to LJ.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I guess enough of my friends list has permanent accounts that I didn't really pay attention to that. I haven't had time to play around with it yet, to figure out how I'd use it. (A little in the "what's this functionality" sort of way, but mostly in the "how do I want to change what I currently do" sort of way.)

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I like that rationalization much better than the other ones I've heard, but I admit I'm surprised to hear it from you. :) (But can you believe I *still* haven't seen Secretary??)

My feelings on the show pretty much match yours. Meh.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Why the surprise? (OK, and yes, I'm surprised that you haven't seen the movie yet.)

I don't know why they chose this play, actually. I mean, there are lots of other good 'comedies' they haven't done, and this one's so annoying to modern ideas of gender roles and relationships.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I don't know why they chose this play, actually.

Yeah, that was my question.

As for the surprise, it's just that (as far as I know, anyway!) the topics you brought up hit rather closer to home for some of the folks in the groups I was with. It's not so much that I'm surprised you thought of it, because you're insightful and intelligent, but rather I'm surprised I heard it from you *first*.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Ah, got it.

Maybe because I didn't go with a group, and traveled alone, so there was time to think about my reactions without distraction.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether I'd like to see another production of this play or not.

If someone did a BDSM-themed production like what you described, I'd totally see that. :)

[magid.livejournal.com]

Hee!

The Othello I saw earlier this year definitely had BDSM undercurrents, which actually made it work much better. I chatted with the director, who told me that he hadn't planned that at all, it just came out in rehearsals, and deepened over the run of the play.

[rethought.livejournal.com]

It's not my favorite of Shakespeare's plays, but the times I've seen it, the women turn the tables on the men in the end. I felt a little bit better about it then.


Since I've a permanent account, now I'm off to find out what you mean by tack icons... :)

[magid.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the play (I have a horrible time reading plays and poetry, because I tend to gulp chunks of text too quickly, so lose threads of conversation or particular word images), so while I know there was some monkeying with the text, I don't know whether the ending you describe is in the original or added in to make us feel better.

Check any comment or post for an example of tack icons. And there's a post about it in the permmembers community (for which you're now eligible :-).

[queue.livejournal.com]

I should probably subscribe to permmembers.

[rethought.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that it's often played with a silent turn on the men in the end. However, since there are no words for these codas, they're not Shakespeare's intention. :(

I suppose he's just a product of his times, but still unfortunate. I always liked Zefferelli's Taming of the Shrew with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

[rethought.livejournal.com]

Oooh, ooh, ooh...um, the teenager movie 10 Things I Hate About You is an adaptation of the play, and the girl definitely gets the upper hand in that one. :)

[magid.livejournal.com]

Yet another movie I haven't yet seen...

[magid.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I've seen some odd things done to Merchant, too. (And there's a novel that makes the story a bit more plausible, given a particular backstory. But not in the original intention, of course.)

The only Zefferelli Shakespeare I've seen is Romeo and Juliet, back when I was in high school.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I haven't used the tack icon yet, but I hope to soon.

My favorite takeoff on Shrew still has to be the Moonlighting episode.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought of the Moonlighting episode too! But, I don't recall how it ends.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I don't remember that Moonlighting episode at all. Though having not seen the play (nor Kiss Me, Kate, assuming that's a modernized version), I probably wouldn't've noticed.

(My favorite episode was the one in Dr. Seuss meter :-)

[(Anonymous)]

The one in which they are looking for a man with a mole on his nose?

I still have that scene memorized, lo these two decades later!

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

I chose not to see this production of Shrew because that message always, always bothers me a lot, and I just don't want to put myself through that discomfort anymore.

Your D/s perspective does make it more palatable in theory but for me there's just not enough character development/relationship development to really support that, and I still don't know that I could stomach it. Especially with the explicit message that this submission is appropriate for all women.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I agree, there's not enough character development/relationship development to warrant this explanation working. Since I haven't seen the play before, and this was obviously not staying extremely close to the text, I wasn't sure how much had been modified/edited out for length.

And I agree about how things shouldn't be assumed to be split along gender lines. I disliked the text of Kate's last speech enormously, but in this production a lot of the actions were implying homosexual encounters of one sort of another, which made things just a little less straight gender roles to me. Again, not in the text, though.

PS

[magid.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of Shakespeare plays I very much like, but this one goes to extremes that feels uncomfortable (also implausible), in the same way that Merchant does. There's a point up until which it's fine, and then it tips over into a cardboard charicature of the evil, money-grubbing Jew. I have a bit of that reaction to Othello as well, though there are people with extreme jealousies, so it doesn't feel quite as fabricated.

tack icons

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

Okay, did anyone except me see "tack icons" and almost immediately think "tachyons"?

Re: tack icons

[magid.livejournal.com]

As soon as I saw the title of your comment I did....

[(Anonymous)]

How about if we expect to receive the play differently? The hero is not a hero but a villain, and his triumph is a tragedy.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, it's not played like that at all. Not in this production, and in general, it's one of the 'comedies,' since the major single people pair off at the end, rather than end up dead.

[(Anonymous)]

I didn't mean that the structure of the play is that of Shakespeare's tragedies.

The ending, in this day and age, is disturbing, as opposed to back when it was written when it was truly a jolly ending. The hero does triumph, but we the audience of today see his triumph as tragic, see the hero as villainous.

So, a way to present the play is to recognize that the ending will disturb the audience and to validate that in the presentation.

Tell the story of what happened, not making any changes to the original, but let it be clear from presentation that this is not a happy ending, even as many characters think it is.