The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare. It was one of his earlier plays, probably penned in 1593 or 1594.
Performance and Publication
The subject of the performance and publication of The Taming of the Shrew is complicated by the existence of an alternative version of the story, The Taming of a Shrew, which is "now generally believed to be either a pirated and inaccurate version of Shakespeare's comedy or else a "bad quarto" of a different play, now lost, which also served Shakespeare as a source...."[1]
The earliest known performance is recorded in Philip Henslowe's Diary on June 13, 1594, as "the Tamynge of A Shrowe." This could have been either play, but since the Admiral's Men and the Lord Chamberlain's Men were sharing the Newington Butts theatre at the time, scholars have tended to assume that it was Shakespeare's play. It was definitely the canonical Shakespearean version that was acted at Court before King James I and Queen Anne on Nov. 26, 1633. (It was "liked.")
While A Shrew was printed in 1594 and 1596, Shakespeare's play was first published only with its inclusion in the First Folio in 1623. A quarto edition followed in 1631.
In the Restoration period, Samuel Pepys saw John Lacy's adaptation Sauny the Scot on April 9, 1667. More adaptations followed: Christopher Bullock's Cobbler of Preston (1715) and Charles Johnson's play of the same name (1716); A Cure for a Scold, a ballad opera version by James Worsdale at Drury Lane (1735). David Garrick's version, Katherine and Petruchio, was introduced in 1754 and dominated the stage for a century; Herbert Beerbohm Tree staged it in 1879. Shakespeare's play, uncut, returned to the stage in 1844 in a Benjamin Webster production.[2]
Famous recent productions include the 1960 Royal Shakespeare Company production with Peter O'Toole and Peggy Ashcroft, William Ball's 1976 Commedia dell'arte-style staging at the American Conservatory Theatre, and the New York Shakespeare Festival's 1990 production starring Morgan Freeman and Tracey Ullman set in the old west. The longest running Broadway production was the 1935 Theatre Guild staging with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, which ran for 129 performances.
Plot summary
Induction
An introductory Act, called by Shakespeare an "induction", sets up The Taming of the Shrew as a "play within a play". A Lord decides to play a joke on a sleeping drunk named Christopher Sly. Dressed as a lord and slipped into a fine bed, Sly is told when he awakes that he is a great lord who has lost his memory, and his ale-house rambles were but a dream. Some players offer for his entertainment the comedy of Kate the Shrew.
After these scenes, Sly has only two lines and Shakespeare all but abandons the "play within a play" device. The conceit is frequently omitted from productions. A Shrew contains the conclusion of the frame play as well as its beginning; some modern stage productions have employed its version of the Sly framework.
The Induction contains two interesting allusions, to "Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot" (Ind.,2,21) and to "Cicely Hacket" (Ind.,2,89). Wincot was a tiny village four miles south of Stratford-upon-Avon, and a Hacket family lived there in the 1590s. This is one small piece of evidence supporting the consensus view that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays attributed to him [see: Shakespearean authorship].[3]
Act I
Lucentio has come to Padua to pursue his education; his servant Tranio urges him to indulge the other pleasures of youth as well.
The wealthy merchant Baptista Minola enters, with his daughters, the shrewish Katherine (called "Kate") and the sweet-tempered Bianca. Baptista tells two suitors of Bianca, Gremio and Hortensio, that none may marry Bianca until after Kate has a husband. The rivals agree it will be hard to find someone for Kate, for even though her dowry will be large, her temper is volatile. Meanwhile, Lucentio vows to woo Bianca himself.
Fortunately, Hortensio's friend Petruchio arrives from out of town, looking for a rich wife. He says he cares nothing for her temper nor her appearance, as long as he can "wive it wealthily".
Hoping that Petruchio will solve the problem of Kate, and hearing that Baptista wants his daughters to have tutors, Bianca's three suitors contrive plans to woo her in person.
Act II
Kate and Bianca are at home fighting. Kate has tied up Bianca and beats her, when the pack of suitors arrive. Hortensio has disguised himself as a music teacher, so that he can spend time with Bianca and woo her secretly. Gremio has another plan: he has hired a Latin tutor for Bianca, leaving himself free to negotiate dowry terms with Baptista. He does not know that this tutor is actually his rival Lucentio. Meanwhile, Tranio has disguised himself as Lucentio so he can negotiate dowry terms with Baptista. Petruchio comes as himself.
Baptista sends the tutors to instruct the girls, while he discusses financial arrangements with Petruchio. Hortensio soon emerges with his lute broken over his head, courtesy of Kate. Petruchio expresses admiration at her spirit. Kate herself comes to dissuade him, but for once has met her equal with words (Kate insults Petruchio, who turns each of her insults into sexual innuendo). Baptista approves the match.
Next, Baptista considers whether Lucentio (who is actually Tranio) or Gremio shall marry Bianca. Each claims to love her, so the deciding factor is the wealth they bring. No matter how much Gremio promises, Tranio can outbid him by claiming that he will inherit much more from "his" father Vincentio. Baptista agrees that Bianca will marry Lucentio, provided Vincentio confirms the inheritance within a week.
Tranio ponders who he can get to play Vincentio.
Act III
The disguised tutors continue their wooing, until Bianca is called away to help Katherine dress for her wedding. The wedding of Katherine and Petruchio is a very strange affair; Petruchio dresses oddly, breaks nearly every custom, and departs with Katherine even before the wedding-feast. Bianca observes that her sister "being mad, is madly mated". Following this Baptista Minola instructs Bianca and her soon to be husband Lucentio to take the places of Katherine and Petruchio at the head table.
Act IV
Hortensio, believing Tranio (as Lucentio) who says Bianca has shown him some affection, brings him to Baptista's house. In hiding they see Bianca flirting with Lucentio (as Cambio). For her apparent inconstancy he has Tranio swear with him that they give up courting her and leaves to find a widow to marry "ere three days pass".
En route to, and at his country estate, Petruchio begins his "taming" of his new wife. He keeps her from sleeping, invents reasons why she should not eat, and buys her beautiful clothes only to rip them up. When Kate, profoundly shaken by her experiences, is told that they are to return to Padua for Bianca's wedding, she is only too happy to comply. By the time they arrive, Kate's taming is complete and she no longer resists Petruchio. She complies in Petruchio's game, demonstrating her subordination to his will by agreeing that she will regard the moon as the sun, or the sun as the moon, if he demands it. She has understood her husband's method at last.
Meanwhile, Tranio persuades a travelling pedant to pretend to be Vincentio. Baptista is pleased to meet Lucentio's father and agrees to the wedding.
As Petruchio and Kate return to Padua for Bianca's wedding, they meet the real Vincentio and congratulate him on his son's impending marriage. This is a surprise to Vincentio.
Act V
There is great confusion as all disguises collapse. However, everyone ends up married; Lucentio to Bianca and Hortensio to a rich widow. During the banquet, Petruchio brags that his wife, formerly untamable, is now completely obedient. Baptista, Hortensio, and Lucentio are incredulous and the latter two believe that their wives are more obedient. Petruchio proposes a wager in which each will send a servant to call for their wives, and whichever wife comes most obediently will have won the wager for her husband. Baptista, not believing that his shrewish Katharina has been tamed, offers an enormous second dowry in addition to the wager.
Neither Bianca nor the widow responds to the call. Kate does, winning for Petruchio a second dowry. Kate ends the play with a monologue explaining that wives should always obey their husbands and lords, but is she playing the same game as Petruchio?
Characters
Main
- Christopher Sly - Tinker
- Bartholomew - A Page
- Baptista Minola - Father of Kate and Bianca
- Vincentio - Father of Lucentio
- Katherina (Kate) - The "shrew" of the title
- Petruchio - Suitor of Kate
- Bianca - Sister of Kate; the ingenue
- Lucentio - Suitor of Bianca (later disguised as the teacher Cambio)
- Gremio - Elderly Suitor of Bianca
- Hortensio - Suitor of Bianca (later disguised as the teacher Litio)
- Tranio - Servant of Lucentio (later impersonates Lucentio)
- Biondello - Servant of Lucentio
- Grumio - Servant of Petruchio
- Curtis - Servant of Petruchio
- Nathaniel - Servant of Petruchio
- Joseph - Servant of Petruchio
Minor
- A Haberdasher
- A Lord
- A Pedant (later impersonates Vicentio)
- Peter - Servant of Petruchio
- A Tailor
- A Widow - eventually marries Hortensio
- A Page (disguised as a Lady)
- Hostess of an alehouse
- Huntsman of the Lord
- Players
- Servingmen
- Messenger
Criticism
The Taming of the Shrew has been the subject of much criticism. In particular, feminists have attacked the play, and in particular the play's final scene, as offensively misogynistic. Others have defended the play by highlighting the (frequently omitted) induction as evidence that the play is not meant to be taken at face value and the fact that Petruchio submits himself to the same treatment to which he submits Kate. One recent production by the American Players' Theater used part of the induction and an added ending to avoid the controversy surrounding the play; in their version, the entire play is actually Sly's dream that he is Petruchio, a dream from which he is awakened by his shrewish, real-life wife.
Film and television productions
- The earliest known film adaptation is the 1908 silent version directed by D.W. Griffith.
- The first sound version on film is the 1929 adaptation starring Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, with "additional dialogue by Sam Taylor."
- The 1967 film adaptation directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton is the most widely seen version of the play.
- In 1980, the BBC produced a version of the play starring John Cleese as Petruchio.
Sequels and adaptations
The first known adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew was entitled The Woman's Prize, or The Tamer Tamed, a sequel and reply written by John Fletcher, perhaps around 1611. In Fletcher's play, the newly-widowed Petruchio is remarried to a bride who "tames" him with the help of her friends, driving him from his house and refusing to consummate their marriage until he promises to respect her and endeavor to satisfy her. When the two plays were revived together, in 1633 and in the Restoration era, Fletcher's play proved more popular than Shakespeare's; in the 1660s The Shrew was adapted by John Lacy, an actor for William Davenant's King's Company, to make it a better match with Fletcher's work.[4]
Lacy's adaptation, Sauny the Scot, somewhat inconsistently anglicized the character names and recast the play in prose. Most significantly, Lacy expanded the part of Grumio into the title role, which he played himself. Sauny is an irreverent, cynical companion to Petruchio, comically terrified of his master's new bride. The conclusion, in which the Katherine-character feigns death, is influenced by Fletcher's play. Lacy's work premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1667; it is known to have been revived as late as 1698.
A number of later works have been derived from The Taming of the Shrew, including the Cole Porter musical Kiss Me, Kate; the Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari opera Sly; the classic 1952 film The Quiet Man; the 1999 teen motion picture 10 Things I Hate about You; the 2003 motion picture Deliver Us From Eva; and the 2000 Brazilian soap opera O Cravo e a Rosa ([1]).
The television series Moonlighting also produced one episode ("Atomic Shakespeare") which recast the show's main characters in a comedic parody of The Taming of the Shrew.
The BBC One ShakespeaRe-Told series sets the story in modern-day Britain, with Katherine (played by Shirley Henderson) as an abrasive career politician who is told she must find a husband as a public relations exercise. This modern version still has Kate stating it is a woman's duty to love and obey her husband, but with the requirement that he do precisely the same for her.
References
- ^ Anne Barton, in The Riverside Shakespeare, G. Blakemore Evans, textual editor; Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1974; p. 106.
- ^ F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; pp. 483-84.
- ^ Halliday, Shakespeare Companion, pp. 201, 531.
- ^ Michael S. Dobson, The Making of the National Poet: Shakespeare, Adaptation and Authorship, 1660-1769, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995; p. 23.
External links
- The Taming of the Shrew - searchable, indexed e-text
- The Taming of the Shrew - HTML version of this title.
- The Taming of the Shrew - plain vanilla text from Project Gutenberg
- Lesson plans for The Taming of the Shrew at Web English Teacher
