The Taming of the Shrew

Synopsis

Two wealthy sisters in Padua must be married off. The modest, demure Bianca has no shortage of suitors, but who on earth will take the wild, ungovernable, ?shrewish' Katherina? Perhaps the gold-digging Petruchio, as maddeningly strong willed and perverse as Katherina herself, will be equal to the task of bullying her to the altar. Shakespeare's outrageous comedy introduces one of the theatre's great screwball double-acts, a couple hellbent on confusing and outwitting each other right up to its controversial conclusion.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 26 January 2012

It is odd how the apparent nastiness of The Taming of the Shrew – the forcible subjugation of a woman in marriage after a campaign of torture and humiliation – often makes for a riotous and enjoyable evening in the theatre.

So it proves once more in Lucy Bailey’s spirited RSC revival, thanks to the vigour of the performances and the generous treatment of the play’s excesses. The Irish actor David Caves is a bone-headed but charismatic roisterer as Petruchio while Lisa Dillon as Kate manages to convey her submission as a challenge taken up on her own terms.

And the whole play is framed within the world of a dream on a huge, stage-filling bed – as big as the bed of Ware itself, an Elizabethan tourist attraction – where the drunken tinker Christopher Sly (Nick Holder) is unceremoniously dumped in the prologue.

There has to be some current of electricity flowing between Petruchio and Katherina in th...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

David Baxter - 22 March 2012:

Apart from The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew is probably Shakespeare's most maligned play, the misogyny and mental cruelty sitting very uncomfortably for a modern audience. Lucy Bailey responds with a hugely physical and bawdy production which went down a storm with the school parties and Richmond's notoriously somnolent patrons. Lisa Dillon's Kate is a hard drinking and smoking, violent tattoeed (her own I think) delinquent, clearly at risk of turning into a posh character from Eastenders. There is a suggestion that Petruchio's rough treatment rescues her from such a fate but there is a closing scene where he also offers his submission to her - clearly this is a couple of equally volcanic temperaments united by a consuming physical passion. The framing scenes with Christopher Sly are riotously funny and let the playwright off the hook - it's all a figment of Sly's drunken imagination. This is a hugely entertaining production of a notoriously difficult play superbly performed by an excellent RSC ensemble (look out for the lookalikes - Matthew Kelly, Mark Rylance, even Engelbert!). It will be very interesting to compare it to a doubtless boisterous version at the Globe this summer....

Read more and add your own review

Related Whatsonstage.com Articles

Naughty Nicol bows out Brief Encounter With ... Lisa Dillon, the RSC’s new Shrew More»