Shakespeare is often a subject of literary debate. There are debates about his treatment of women, his politics, and there are even debates about whether Shakespeare actually wrote the plays himself. One play that is particularly debated for its treatment of women is Taming of the Shrew. If you have seen the movie ’10 Things I Hate About You’, that is a loose version of the plot. And I mean, the plot is basically the same except without the scene where Heath Ledger’s character would psychologically torture his love interest.
If you haven’t, basically there are two main female characters that are sisters. The older sister (Katerina) is deemed too much trouble and no one wants to marry her. Her younger sister (Bianca) has multiple suitors, but their father says that until the older sister is married, the young sister can’t marry. One of the suitor’s for Bianca hears his friend talking about wanting to settle down and pushes him to pursue Katerina while he and another suitor pretend to be tutors to flirt with Bianca. Petruchio (the friend sent to woo Katerina) pretends to find her charming and sweet, so she agrees to marry him (sort of, he basically forces her into it) thinking he is the only guy that will tolerate her. As soon as they are married he throws a drunken scene, hits a priest, and drags her back to his house against her will. He then basically tortures her. He denies her food, sleep, clothing, and makes her doubt her sanity by constantly telling her what she knows to be true is wrong until finally she basically says whatever he says goes, if he says the moon is the sun or a candle then she will just make herself believe it is. They then head back to Bianca’s wedding and he says his male friend is a woman, so she agrees. He then scolds her and says he is obviously a man, so she apologies to him. One of Bianca’s suitors has won her over and they get married, the other marries a rich widow.
In the end the three husbands are talking in a bar and make a bet about who has the most obedient wife. Each sends for their wife to prove it, but only Katerina comes. Petruchio then sends Katerina to go get the other wives, which she does. And then she then lectures them about how they should be more subservient to their husbands, the way a servant is to a king and their temperament should be as weak and soft as their physical strength. Even offering her hand to him to step on. Then Petruchio says he is lucky that Katerina let herself be tamed and the other husbands are unlucky, because the women they married were two-faced pretending to be meek maids but now that they are married are really shrews.
There are three main arguments about this ending and the final speech. The first is that Katerina means every word. That after everything that happened and what Petruchio did to manipulate her, she believes this. Even suggesting that she blames herself for what happened based on her early attitude. Another argument is that she doesn’t agree and that she is just saying what her husband wants to hear, likely to avoid further repercussions from her husband. The third theory is that Katerina was in on the bet and it was all a show for the other two husbands. This doesn’t make too much sense to me because if she was in on it, the whole part where he psychologically tortured her wouldn’t make sense. Unless that was like…a really disturbing prank to prove a point.
Overall, none of the endings are really happy. It is why this is a play I usually avoid, but I’ve actually just got tickets to see it. Bard on the Beach is a group in Vancouver, BC that does Shakespeare plays. They take them and set them in different times, different locations, and different contexts and I am eager to see what they do to this. The last play I saw by them was also a little controversial in its treatment towards women. It’s called Two Gentlemen of Verona. Basically, there are two best friends. Friend A is in love, Friend B is skeptical about love and then travels away and falls in love with Girl B. Friend A promises his love for Girl A. Then Friend A travels to where Friend B is, he sees Girl B and falls in love. So both friends are in love with Girl B. Girl B, doesn’t really like either at first but does eventually warm to Friend B. Friend A tries to undermine Friend B and gets Friend B banished. Friend B goes into the woods and meets a group of thieves and joins them as their leader. Friend A pursues Girl B but she’s not having it. Girl A sees Friend A pursuing Girl B and wants him to be happy so tries to help, but is really upset. Girl B leaves with Friend A to try to find Friend B. Friend A then tries to rape Girl B. Friend B interrupts the rape with Girl A. Friend A and B briefly fight, then make up. Girl B’s father says she can get married. Friend B offers to give her (like a literal object) to Friend A in honor of their restored friendship, right in front of Girl B who was just assaulted. Girl A is revealed to be there. Friend A decides to marry Girl A, Friend B says he will marry Girl B, and the men go off to celebrate while the girls literally are given 0 say. That is basically where the play ends.
But in the Bard on the Beach version, they show that the group of thieves are women in disguise when they are first introduced. When the men rush off to plan the weddings, despite not having actually proposed, the thieves basically reveal they are women to Girl A and B and invite them to join them. Girl A and Girl B don’t go after the men, but join the thieves.
I like that ending better. They didn’t change the words of the play and almost none of the stage directions, in fact most of the ending was silent as the women leave the guys. But, it really was a better ending. I hope they do the same with Taming of the Shrew. I don’t know exactly what they could do. The psychological torture, in particular, seems like it would be hard to change without changing the words and it is really what keeps any ending from seeming like a happy one. But that is why I am excited to see it done.
What I might do, if I was them, would be to have the part after the wedding be told in a letter. It would require an additional line or two to separate it as a letter. Or, have it be a dream/imagined circumstance. Petruchio might make a scene at the wedding, whisk her away and then write a letter about his methods to update his friends. Then it could all visually take place exactly as it does in the original play, as the letter is “read” but in the end, it could be revealed as a lie. Which would make the third theory of the original ending possible. He claims that he “broke” her to win the bet and get back at his friend for pushing him to marry her for selfish reasons, when in actuality they were both in on it all along and it was all an elaborate con that they were running together.
I have now seen the play and they did what I would have, well in that they went for option #3 that she was in on it all along. They changed a lot. What they ended up doing was dropping some of the lines all together and really shortening the psychological torture or having him say it, but not do it. He says he is going to keep her from sleeping and makes the plan to do it, but when she actually goes to sleep it suggest he can’t bring himself to do it so he says nothing, puts a jacket over her and lets her sleep. They also swapped a lot of dialogue. And instead of him pointing to the moon and calling it the sun to torment her, it plays like an accident and then a fun argument where she is just like “fine whatever, it’s the sun then”. And then she is the one that calls the man a woman and suggests her husband go along with it, then she corrects him and he apologizes. It all stays really playful more than mean.
It also seems to set up early on that his behavior of acting erratic (kind of like a lunatic) was intentional. That he specifically did it to make her look better compared to him. There is even a line where he is called the devil and everyone says basically says, “well we already knew she was the devil’s wife” and the guy was like “no, you don’t understand, compared to him she is a lamb!” He will basically be normal until people start to call her shrew or whatever and he will start acting out and yelling at her, so she looks like the agreeable one. (Like when a dressmaker and his wife come by, he doesn’t say anything about the dress until they call her a shrew, and then he jumps in and says the dress is the ugliest thing he has ever seen and it is horrible and to tear it to shreds, but she is like “the dress is pretty, I like it”, but he sends the couple away rudely. So, he looks like a jerk, compared to her.)
And then it really plays out that the final bet was her idea all along and it shows them setting up the plot where he makes the bet and calls for her. They even have her give the monologue, then pause for people to basically tip her in support (the men, at least). And then she basically shows that she didn’t change, that she tricked them all, and in the end it seems to suggest that they kind of go off as outlaws together and are actually in love.
It also changed her sister a lot. Her sister in the play was the blandest character ever. She was just like the epitome of a boring, “good girl”. But in this version, they made her into a flirt and a bit of a lush. Which I liked because that is who she was before marriage too, actually. They showed her flirting with both tutors and both suitors, they just choose to take it as her just flirting with them or just being nice. It reminded me of Into the Woods, how the princes were constantly trying to save the Princess but once they were married they lost interest. They took Bianca’s behavior as kindness and sincerity when they couldn’t be with her, but once someone won her, they saw it as flirtation and disobedience.
Bianca even left home despite being basically grounded to go flirt and her sister dragged her back home, but when Kat was scolding her sister for sneaking out and being a flirt her mother and guests come in. Her mother sees Bianca crying and tells Kat off. When asked what her sister did, Kat basically tells her the truth. They take what she says as her saying she doesn’t like that her sister is so innocent, but really it could mean that she doesn’t like that her sister plays innocent and acts like the victim and calls her out for fake crying all the time. But her mother sides with Bianca.
It really sets up why Kat might be the way she is, at least to some extent. In 10 Things I Hate About You, it suggests that she was like Bianca but that she slept with a suitor who then lost interest in her, so she closed herself off. I could see why she is angry at her sister, who gets hailed as an innocent and precious thing by both suitors and her parents, while in reality, she sees that her sister is a fake and a flirt. Even in their studies, Bianca is hailed as the better of the two.
She just walks by or into a room and people start shouting “shrew” at her. They constantly harass, torment, and mock her. One of the men who is pursuing her sister is powerful. If 10 Things I Hate About You’s take that she was attached to one of her sister’s suitors (this suitor being the equivalent to the one in the movie), it is possible he proposed and she rejected him, leading to the “shrew” chanting and her becoming more and more bitter.
Overall, I think there were a lot of interesting elements and it was very well done. It could not be helpful to see this version INSTEAD of the original, but it was a nice retelling of the original.
