Taming Acts 2 & 3:

Only one scene in this act.

OK, if I HAD to teach Shrew (ugh) aside from focusing on how offensive I find it, I think I could play with the staging of this scene/would focus on this act. Bianca is bound somehow by her sister. The possibilities of how to stage this could be super interesting. Also how Bianca is played: is she a veritable Disney princess? is she Anne Aarwick from the queens pretends to be young and naive but is really a hellion? etc. Kate hits her sister in this scene. Is she really just a crazy bitch like everyone claims? Or has Bianca given her reason. WHO THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO CHEER FOR IN THIS PLAY!?!?! You also get the distinct impression that Katherine is pissed at her father and feels incredibly abused and unloved by him.

I really get too angry trying to summarize so let's skip to a line i find interesting/cool:

"and where two raging fires meet together,

They do consume the thing that feeds their fury"

If that were really the theme of the play, if Petruchio really showed her the love Kate lacked in her father's house, and taught her how to play at her own life ignoring the world, i could probably be convinced to get on board- but it is NOT. Petruchio doesn't unite Kate's fire with his own but rather starves it out until its a pile of sad coals.

anyway, Petruchio has a soliloquy in this scene where he basically says he's going to pretend everything Kate does is great and completely ignore whatever it is that she's actually doing. How do we feel about this as a sociological principle in general? It reminds me of how some parents approach their toddlers- though i'm wondering if that kind of approach is ever successful...

After this soliloquy is, I will admit, a really well written scene. If this scene and the wits matched and fairly even playing field employed throughout most of the scene was how the play progressed again, i think i could be persuaded to give this show a chance. but i take issue with it being called the "wooing" scene as in the end he does NOT woo her here. and the whole threat of violence obviously really bothers me. the violence throughout this play from both men and women is unsavory- but after Kate strikes petruchio once he's provoked her with an oral sex joke, he responds with "I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again" I just stop laughing/even trying to get on board and the rest of the play, aside from possibly the pedant scene, is just not funny to me.

It drives me batty that Petruchio "convinces" everyone that kate is only mean in public and loves him privately so on with the marriage!

but not so batty as Baptista in his next breath deciding who can marry Bianca based on who has the most money to give her. RAGE.

Act 3

3.1

aka "the music lesson"

Lucentio and Hortensio are with Bianca "in disguise" as a music teacher and a Latin teacher. Lucentio "translates" his Latin to secretly talk with Bianca. There's a lot of dirty dirty jokes regarding Hortensio's instrument. We see Bianca is suspicious of both these men and has a bit of bite that she doesn't show in front of daddy. She leaves and Hortensio vows to look into this other tutor.

3.2

aka the would-be wedding scene. I actually think Kate's speech in this scene is potentially a really compelling part of the play. Particularly if she doesn't rail about this but you see how hurt she is by all her circumstances- Petruchio, her father, etc. in fact the stage direction in my "edition" (though i rarely trust stage directions) says that kate runs out crying and bianca follows her.Then biondello comes in with a crazy time town description of petruchio:

BION Why, Petruchio is coming in a new hat and an old jerkin; a pair of old breeches thrice turn’d; a pair of boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled, another lac’d; an old rusty sword ta’en out of the town armory, with a broken hilt, andchapeless; with two broken points; his horse hipp’d, with an old mothy saddle and stirrups of no kindred; besides, possess’d with the glanders and like tomose in the chine, troubled with thelampass, infected with the fashions, full ofwindgalls, sped with spavins, ray’d with the yellows, past cure of the fives, starkspoil’d with the staggers, begnawn with the bots, sway’d in the back, andshoulder-shotten, near-legg’d before, and with a half-cheek’d bit and a head-stall of sheep’s leather, which being restrain’d to keep him from stumbling, hath been often burst, and now repair’d with knots; one girth six times piec’d, and a woman’scrupper of velure, which hath two letters for her name fairly set down in studs, and here and there piec’d with packthread.

BAP.

Who comes with him?

BION.

O, sir, his lackey, for all the worldcaparison’d like the horse; with a linenstock on one leg, and a kersey boot-hoseon the other, gart’red with a red and bluelist; an old hat, and the humor of fortyfancies prick’d in’t for a feather: a monster, a very monster in apparel, and not like a Christian footboy or a gentleman’s lackey.

After all this build up Petruchio enters. is he all that was in Biondello's description? Crazed but not all that the servant described? Even crazier? This is clearly a VERY fun choice for a costumer/director to play with. Maybe if I had to teach this play I would focus on that kind of choice and ask about what impression that gives us of Petruchio/why make those choices.

Beautiful moment:

when petruchio is scolded about his wedding apparel he replies

"To me she's married, not unto my clothes.

Could I repair what she will wear in me,

As i can change these poor accoutrements,

'Twere well for Kate, and better for myself..."

Most of the people then leave the stage for the wedding (since, as we talked about in Midsummer/R&J, weddings dont take place onstage.) and then Gremio comes back on to report what he's seen, with the startling news that 

"Tut, she's (Kate's) a lamb, a dove, a fool to him (Petruchio)!"

There's also report that Petruchio STRUCK THE PRIEST at their wedding.

"Such a mad marriage never was before"

Petruchio and Kate and the rest of the crowd re-enter after this description and Petruchio announces they will not stay for their wedding feast/reception, but instead head to his place at once. Kate insists that she will stay and Petruchio can leave by himself if he wants. she says "I see a woman may be made a fool, If she had not a spirit to resist" to which Petruchio replies that everyone else can stay and enjoy but she is coming with him because "I will be master of what is mine own. She is my goods, my chattels, she is my house, my household stuff, my field, my barn, my horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing; and here she stands, touch her whoever dare..." and then he and his servant draw swords to take Kate away from everyone else. And everyone just seems to laugh at Kate's fate and decide to go eat with Bianca and "lucentio" taking the place of the bride and groom. OH. MY. GOD. I. HATE. THIS. PLAY.

Side note: I was going to put pictures of some Taming of the Shrew productions/ posters/etc. but almost all of them in and of themselves disgust me. They scream of the NO means YES problem with society/ rape culture. Maybe in the end thats the real problem I have with this play. Maybe thats why productions that try to make petruchio "sweet" in his actions and "helping her" bother me even more than productions that play up the misogyny of this horrible man.

But Seriously, how much better is THIS for a wooing scene:

 

Taming act I: Let's get this rage out before the new year...

The next play is my LEAST favorite in the cannon. So take all my opinions/selections with a grain of salt. It's the one play i would gladly erase and replace with the modern counterpart.

PROLOGUE sc.1

Ah the frame story/structure where a drunkard is "tricked" by a bar host and a lord. Seriously that's how this play starts. a lot of people cut this section because it is awkward to keep consistent since it kind of disappears most of the play. Plus its like this horrible dark version of Prince and the Pauper where the Lord doesn't lose any status and the guy turned to a Lord has it ripped away as a cruel joke later and no one seems to learn anything except how they should tame their wives. See? Hate this play. I'm sorry I can't be impartial.

*Can someone look up st. jeronimy?

*ah, let's focus on this line... "What's here? one dead or drunk? See, doth he breathe"- has anyone noticed that Shakespeare's characters have a real problem with figuring out if someone is dead or not? I know, its probably because the whole stage convention and someone playing dead on stage looks like someone playing asleep onstage but nonetheless... its funny to read time and again that these people are so unsure/confusing dead vs. alive so often.

*So players show up and they are going to act Taming of the Shrew for the people in the frame story, but not without one of the all male players dressing up as a girl and pretending to be a real lady interested in the drunkard. There's potentially some interesting looks at gender construction in this moment but mostly it seems to be your typical hahahah guy dressed as a girl. that's funny. hahahahah homosexual potential is so awkward and hysterical  ha. ha. freaking ha. OK, i will give it one genuinely amusing note- the lord says if the guy playing the woman can't cry on cue he should just sniff an onion. nice.

Prologue sc. 2

Sly (the drunkard) is seen commanding servants as the scene opens. They area ll treating him like a Lord and he keeps telling him they are wrong, so then they start acting like he's a crazy man. The similar trope used in Comedy of Errors works much better in my opinion, remind me to blog about it when we get to that play. This is just straight up mean Gaslighting shit. I feel like if it started from the opposite end- if the drunkard started saying he was a lord and everyone else decided to play along to avoid his drunken rage maybe i'd like the frame idea more/find it less cruel. but to make a man crazy for knowing what he is and not paint those people as the bad guys- i dont like that. The servants reference all the great lordly things at Sly's command, including a picture of Io (ah, let's set the theme early- a woman who is literally turned into chattel in the form of a cow. argh.)

Due credit: I like this line:

"Or do I dream? Or have I dream'd till now?" -this whole dream vs. reality is a question Shakespeare continually addresses, right? we'll come back to this in later plays. if it seems like i'm not just remind me...

So then they send in Sly's fake wife after they've convinced him he's a lord, and predictably the first thing he wants to do with his wife is go to bed with her. but that would make the joke over pretty fast unless they can convince sly that wives should have male appendages, so they tell him he needs to wait a day or two because its such a shock to her he's in his right mind again plus he could put himself back into madness by exerting so much sexual energy.

another good line:

Frame your mind to mirth and merriment

which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life

If only i liked the merriment they present...

after some arguing about what kind of play they are going to present, drunky McDrunkerson and his fake wife are going to see, the frame story fades to the background and the actual play begins.

Act 1, Scene 1:

OK, much like the frame story, the actual play begins with relationship between servant and master before we translate that relationship to the gender parts of the play. Its very into hierarchy and the consequences of subverting that hierarchy and the need to reassert that hierarchy at the end (oops.. spoiler alert...)

The first character we meet is Lucentio, who was sent with his father's blessing to padua because it is the "nursery of arts"- ok, so he's come here to study and immerse himself in the arts. Maybe we can get behind this guy. Tranio, Lucentio's servant, responds to his intentions with the request that they not be Stoics and still party amidst all this studying- we'll come back to this thought when we get to Love's Labour's Lost. Lucentio seems open to Tranio's proposal that he only study what he finds fun/what he likes, including partying if that's a subject he enjoys. 

The two then meet the residents- Baptista, the father figure in the story comes in arguing with Gremio and Hortensio. Its interesting that Gremio is described as a "pantaloon" anyway, here's where we get the exposition- Baptista has 2 daughters and the younger one can't get married before the older one. And it seems that everyone wants the younger one. But Baptista tries to push the older one- Katherina onto either of the younger one's (Bianca's) suitors. Did i mention that both of his daughers are standing right there through this whole exchange? way to go dad. Kate says some saucy things, often passive agressive, but read the scene and think if she deserves this-

Katherine in this first scene is called: rough, devil, wench, stark mad, froward, fiend of hell, devil's dam, hell

Bianca meanwhile is complimented for her silence

More exposition: Baptista says he is looking for a music teacher for Bianca- well, maybe for both of them b/c he says children, but he speaks specifically of Bianca. and Gremio and Hortensio decide it is in both of their interests to find a crazy man to marry Kate so they can fight it out for Bianca.

OK, back to the strange status stuff: Lucio asks Tranio for help getting Bianca (how very roman comedy of him) and speaks in latin. the clever servant archetype times. they come up with this idea that Tranio will act as Lucio and pretend to be master to Lucio who is going to pretend to tutor Bianca so he can woo her. Biondello enters and wonders why the men have switched clothes, so Lucio tells him its to save his life since he killed a man since arriving--- suuuuuure.

The scene ends with going back to the frame story for four lines where we find Sly not paying attention to the play and wishing it were over. I wish it was over too, Sly...

1.2

oh goody. now we get to meet Petruchio and his servant Grumio. It seems to me from their first exchange that Grumio is either belligerent or stupid or both. And can we talk about how intentionally confusing it is that in this play there's a Grumio and a Gremio?! there's lots of master/servant violence. which i dont find funny. A small note that I didnt notice before, Petruchio tells his friend Hortensio that one of the reasons he's in Padua is that his father passed away. Also, can we just make it a rule that apparently, according to Shakespeare's examples, a girl should not get involved with a guy from Verona?! they don't have great track records... Hortensio thinks maybe Petruchio should marry Kate, since he's looking for a wife, but warns petruchio of Kate's disposition. Petruchio doesn't care. He just wants to marry someone rich. Now I ain't sayin he a GOLDDIGGER...

I have decided i really hate the character Grumio.

OK, I do think that now is a good time to address a common misconception about Petruchio that irks me. I have seen some productions where Petruchio is a crazy hick/country bumpkin and I think that is completely incorrect. He's from Verona. He speaks as a very smart well-educated man. And THAT to me makes him far more terrifying than a country ignoramus who does mean things to women because he's so out there and crazy. You would hope well educated men would know better.

Also, i am already annoyed by the foreign language bits in here. again, i really just hate this play... can I just re-watch 10 things I Hate About You instead of re-reading any more?!Brain flash, going to post from that movie. Which I dont own the rights to and should any legalese person try to come after me for all the movies i've posted on my blog please just go after whoever posted it on youtube instead. 

More tomorrow...

 

R&J Act 5: Much delayed but we all know what's coming...

ACT 5:

Ah romeo's dream speech- hammer of foreshadow central.

I'd like to take this moment to say that Balthazar is an AWESOME role He comes out of nowhere, royally screws everything up by telling romeo of Juliet's "death" and does it with AMAZING language.

Then she is well and nothing can be ill:

Her body sleeps in Capel's monument

And her immortal part with angels lives.

and then we move on to the apothecary that Romeo remembers lives nearby...

Thanks, again, to my obsession with Nickleby the apothecary scene always makes me cry, even just with the first line of 

who calls so loud

The apothecary also gets the badass line of

My poverty, but not my will, consents

My god I think everyone has a moment or two where they think this, huh? I wonder if that was the thought of the actors involved in this travesty... by the by in no way to I approve or even suggest you watch this video clip, let alone the whole movie... I have yet to experience the feature film, but if we are talking about cultural baggage we have to include this creepy and odd piece:

5.2

A very short scene. just long enough for Balthazar to not be the only character that screwed everything up. It turns out the friar who was supposed to deliver Lawrence's letter about how Juliet's death is FAKE got re-routed due to the plague. oops. Again, I love that Lawrence realizes he's screwed up and faces his consequences, heading to fetch Juliet.

5.3 

The final scene, and like most of Shakespeare's final scenes, potentially difficult to stage what with the corpse times and crow bars and whatnot.This scene is where Paris really tips the scales for me. He has some beautiful lines and images and I just dont think the guy would be visiting her tomb alone if he didn't truly care for her. I mean the man's dying words are:

If thou be merciful

Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet

After Romeo dispatches with Paris, there is even more light and dark talk than there has been this whole play- how did i never notice just how much of this there was before?!

Juliet waking up in the tomb with her dead love and her dead cousin and her dead would be 2nd husband- horror! and Friar Lawrence really screws up by being afraid enough of the prince to LEAVE HER THERE! so its really no surprise she offs herself. she was going to before and now there's been much more trauma. I think its admirable that the Friar even comes back to the scene.

Can we talk about how weird it is story wise that montague comes out and announces that oh yeah his wife died of grief?

And What do we think of the end of this play? I'm not sure I buy that with their death they end their parents strife- or maybe they end their parents but surely there are other members of these great households who are just more angry from these events? Or am I just really cynical with the world right now? And What do we think of the titular characters and their choice of death? Is it romantic? Cowardly? Stupid? All of the above?

OK, along with the end of R&J I leave you with the most horrifying cultural clash clip of all: Tromeo and Juliet. in no way do i support this film and in no way do i recommend you watch it. but if you do watch it- i recommend having a drink before and during.... and yes, you can find this whole horrifying movie on youtube...