The 2003 ‘Regime Change’ season at Shakespeare’s Globe saw the theatre belatedly extend its original practices experiments – which had included a number of productions with all-male casts – to a single-sex, women-led company, performing Richard III and The Taming of the Shrew in repertory. Phyllida Lloyd joined the project late in the day after Barry Kyle left the production, and the result (as seen on the archive video at Shakespeare’s Globe) is a joyful, comic, and playfully satirical take on the play that celebrates the bodies and improvisatory skill of the company’s women.ASO-SLING Women Wedge Sneakers Anti Slip Running shoes Lightweight Mesh Athletic Bow Striped SneakersSammitop Women's Peep Toe High Heel Pumps Ladies Elegant 12cm Spike Stilettos Cute Dress shoes.FEWW11 Women Cool Lightweight shoes Sneakers Whales Whale Repeat Dark bluee Canvas Upper Running Lace-UpFEWW11 Women Cute Lightweight shoes Sneakers Pug Pineapple and Sunglasses Rainbow Background Breathable Running.
For Lloyd’s company, men are a species unto themselves. Even rival suitors Hortensio (Yolanda Vazquez) and Gremio (Penelope Dimind) slap one another’s backs and share mutually reinforcing shouts and grunts. Petruchio, when he emerges in the imposing six-foot form of Janet McTeer, Dandelion Dandelion Seed Flower Women Casual shoes Boat Cool News VeganWeenFashion Women's Solid Frosted Spikes Stilettos Zipper Round Closed Toe Bootsis the most alpha of the males, embodying a slightly swaggering but entirely self-possessed confidence that brooks no argument.
This commedia-inflected production plays the Shrew fairly straight, for laughs, and without the induction that might give it an ironic frame. Instead, any critique and irony comes from within the performances themselves, as the company allow the play to be a comedy but allow that comedy to push to uncomfortable places. Kathryn Hunter’s Katherina is a spoiled woman-child, stamping her feet and shouting wordlessly when she doesn’t get her way,FEWW11 Women Cool Lightweight shoes Sneakers Deer Beer Bear Brown Cozy Sport Lace-UpFEWW11 Women Funny Lightweight shoes Sneakers Rainbow American Flag Canvas Upper Gym Lace-Up and in the early scenes Petruchio brilliantly turns this against her when informing the other men that they have agreed she will do this – when she stamps, the men clap and cheer her; when she shouts, they turn it into a huzzah, depriving her of her best weapons. Her abuse of her sister Bianca (Laura Rogers) is thorough and quite violent, but this comes from justifiable resentment at the clear favouritism of her father Baptista (Anna Healy). Katherina has undeniable problems, but watching her passed over by her father and gaslit by her wooer is still hard to watch.
During the second half, at Petruchio’s house, the strategies are very clear and centred around food. In a clever move, Lloyd brings onstage Petruchio’s spaniel Troilus, an actor in a dog costume, who takes an immediate dislike to Katherina; Katherina tries to flee from the dog, FEWW11 Women Cute Lightweight shoes Sneakers Black and White Orca Whales Cozy Running Lace-UpFEWW11 Women Cute Lightweight shoes Sneakers Cute Cartoon Polar Bear On The Iceburg Cozy Sport Lace-Upthen beats it with a broom, leaving it whimpering away to get the sympathy of the servants. Later, Katherina sneaks up to the dog while it and Grumio sleep to steal its boneFEWW11 Women Cute Lightweight shoes Sneakers Black T Rex Dinosaur and Bones Canvas Upper Gym Lace-Up,Women's shoes Rubber Summer Comfort Sandals Flat Heel for Outdoor KhakiHoufeoans Women High Heels Sandals Leisure Buckle Strap Chunky Heel shoes Women Summer Bowtie Sandalias her hunger absolutely desperate by this point. Later, as a reward, Petruchio gives Katherina some food, but then embraces her and coddles her while Hortensio finishes it off. And increasingly it becomes obvious that Petruchio is treating Katherina exactly like his dog, right down to the whistles and shouts of ‘Here’. Women Cool Lightweight shoes Sneakers Forest Moon Light Bears Canvas Upper Sport Lace-Up
The comedy of the production is sincere, then, but leads to uncomfortable positions. Hunter’s virtuoso physical skills allow her to be tumbled upside down when she fights against Petruchio, and to be carried around the stage in all kinds of undignified postures;WeiPoot Women's Zipper Round Closed Toe Spikes Stilettos Pu Mid Top BootsBeautiful - Fashion Women's Waterproof Hiking shoes Outdoor Running Trail Hiker Casual Anti-Slip Climbing Backpacking shoes yet the audience’s laughter seems to doubly imply both recognition of her skill and enjoyment of her subjugation. The applause of the audience in the archive video after Katherina comes to Petruchio at his command seems sincere, as it the audience are approving the taming. It’s a microcosm of a production in which men are consistently awful throughout, but always mutually congratulatory.
The standout sequence, though, is Katherina’s final speech. At Petruchio’s command,FEWW11 Women Cute Lightweight shoes Sneakers Cute Sugar Skull White Canvas Upper Sport Lace-Up she gives a speech of a few lines, and gets applause and approval from her husband. But then she goes for another few lines, and another, and another. An increasingly anxious Petruchio tries to get her to be quiet, but she begins exaggerating the speech more and more, getting up on the banquet table and flashing her legs, and finally lying down in a mockery of Petruchio,Wuixkas Yellow Animal Puppy Dogs Background Womens Lightweight Mesh Sneakers Cute Running shoesWuixkas Camouflage Collage Art Army Womens Lightweight Mesh Sneakers Casual Walking shoes before flouncing offstage.FEWW11 Women Funny Lightweight shoes Sneakers Black Sunflower Pop Decor Cozy Gym Lace-Up We see a glimpse of them having a fight in Italian, suggesting that Katherina is far from ‘tamed’, and indeed will continue to assert herself against Petruchio indefinitely, even as she learns to play the game of this patriarchal world. It’s a quiet reclamation of the play, but a potent one.