The Taming of The Shrew was written around 1590, but the play did not appear in print until the 1623 First Folio. An anonymous version of the play was printed in quarto in 1594, entitled A Pleasant Conceited Historie, called the Taming of a Shrew, as well as a lost play that may have served as a source for Shakespeare’s. The relationship of this play to Shakespeare’s is much debated. It may be a memorial reconstruction or an imitation of Shakespeare’s, or Shakespeare may have acted in A Shrew himself and then revised it. The two versions of the play share some similarities, such as Katherina’s shrewishness, and the several suitors wooing her sister. But there are also significant differences, such as the names of characters, Katherina’s final speech, and the Induction framing device (cut from this production), which in A Shrew returns at the end, but in Shakespeare’s play, disappears.
The Taming of The Shrew was probably performed in repertoire with Titus Andronicus (1593), with which it shares some allusions to the classical texts taught in schools, such as works by the Roman poet, Ovid (43 BC – 17/18 AD), as well as scenes that explore humanist education. Bianca shows her skills in Latin, translating an excerpt from Ovid’s Heroides, while Bianca’s suitors are disguised as schoolmasters and court her during these lessons, which consist of repetition and rote learning, exercises central to the early modern grammar school room. Petruchio, on the other hand, takes up another mode of Renaissance education to woo and teach Katherina. Petruchio engages Katherina in his approach to “education”, through a “taming-school”, expressed through animal training metaphors: the art of falconry, and animal husbandry. Katherina is “trained” by undergoing a theatrical process whereby Petruchio guides her to act out and physically experience his lessons in order to learn love.
In Robynn Rodriguez’s uplifting and inspired production of the play, we are witnesses to the journey of two vulnerable people who are searching for direction. Katherina and Petruchio are both outsiders, compelled to escape the rules and restrictions of Padua to retreat into the natural world, where they find authenticity in each other. On their journey, they find that the sun can be the moon, and that the world can be what they want it to be. In Rodriguez’s powerful reimagining of their relationship as the love match of the Italian revolutionaries Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) and Anita Garibaldi (1821-1849), by the end of the play Katherina and Petruchio are very much on an equal footing, and they have the power to change the world for the better.
Before the play begins
A young gentleman called Lucentio has recently left his father, Vincentio’s house in Pisa. He has traveled to Padua, intending to study philosophy, and is accompanied by his servant, Tranio. Meanwhile, Baptista Minola, a rich citizen of Padua, despairs at the constant fighting between his two daughters, and in particular is concerned about the antisocial behavior of his eldest daughter, Katherina. He seeks tutors for the girls' education. Two suitors, to Bianca, Hortensio and Gremio, are frustrated that she cannot get married until Katherina does.
Katie O'Hare
