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: