Don't take Shakespeare personally

Last night I went to see the taming of the shrew in the Kilkenny arts festival and came away simultaneously impressed and annoyed. To give credit where's its due, the Globe theatre did a fantastic interpretation of the play using music and humor to tell the story and display their many talents but it was the story itself I take issue with. We'll get to that momentarily.

 I have not seen taming of the shrew before either in play form or the movie adaptation and my entire understanding of the actual story was based on the fact that I was told years ago that 10 things I hate about you was loosely based on this story. I've probably seen it about 10 times since it was first released and I actually paused writing this to go find it online again. I did however realize last night, was confusedly trying to untangle the cast (all women) and work out which character was which, quite how loosely they based it. 

Now if you are unfamiliar with the story I'll give you a brief synopsis of the play (not the film  but the film is brilliant in a teen comedy sort of way. go watch it). There is a rich man who has two daughters one called Bianca who is lovely and talented and beautiful and has a long list of suitors hoping to marry her and her older sister Katherine who is also beautiful but sharp tongued and so blunt that she scares off any possible suitors. The father decides the youngest sister cannot marry before her older sister does and so Bianca's suitors pay a man to tame Katherine who is the shrew in this case. This part is reasonably similar to the movie I so enjoyed but what's different about it is at the end of the play the husband has turned Katherine into this obedient and docile creature, Unrecognizable from the woman he married. 

 I do understand that this is a satire and also that Shakepeare was writing in very different times but I still found myself feeling somewhat affronted by the end of the play. At first I thought it because of what they had done to the strong female lead. She was so obedient to her husband's every wish it was almost painful to  watch but then it dawned on me that wasn't at all where my objections stemmed from. I am an outspoken and sarcasstic woman who is working on curbing the more acerbic wit but it's not always successful and then I realized in Shakespearean times I would be the shrew he so vividly describes. Yes it really was as simple as that. I identified with the strong female character and found the idea that she should be tamed almost morally repugnant because it was saying that I should change. Or maybe it wasn't and I was seeing subtext where there was none.

 Intriguing as it was to see myself in this new light, I had to pull myself together and remember that this was just a play, one that I really enjoyed and maybe I just shouldn't take Shakepeare quite so personally.

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