The Mirror in my Mind

Day #11: Your least favourite play - The Taming of the Shrew

This is in spite of the fact that the first time I ever performed Shakespeare was in my tenth-grade English class, doing Shrew, Act IV, Scene I. The more problematic aspects of the scene -- like the fact that Petruchio was literally starving Kate -- completely passed me by, so happy was I to be actually performing Shakespeare. There were maybe four groups in total in my class, and ours came out with fully memorised lines, costumes, and props. Everyone was very happy we went last. ;)

It was only when I read the play again in undergrad that I realised I didn't really find it very funny at all. The only exception is the sun/moon exchange in Act IV, Scene V, which can be hilarious in performance. The rest of it just seems like a series of vignettes about domestic abuse that are somehow meant to be amusing. I have been told that there are productions that take up this aspect of the play and do very interesting things with it, and I'm more than willing to be convinced that I'm wrong to dislike it. (I didn't like Winter's Tale at all, for instance, before seeing it in performance.)

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