As noted previously , I've been thinking about having another run at the Shake-speare Canon...this time by watching (rather than reading) all of the plays. To that end I've just purchased an introductory subscription to Marquee TV (at 99 cents per month for the first 3 months).
As anyone who knows their ass from As You Like It, there are serious problems in the dating of Shake-speare's plays. And anyone who tells you that they know what order the plays were written in is blowing huge quantities of smoke where it doesn't belong. (I'm sorry to say that Isaac Asimov falls into this hole in Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare.)
Ne'ertheless, I decided to follow the suggested chronology that I used in My Shake-speare Project the first. * Thus....
(1) The Taming of the Shrew. (The "second version" you see above is a ballet. I might watch that, too, just to see what they do.)
This was a Royal Shakespeare Company production (2019), but it was far from a conventional presentation. Kate, as well as the other main characters (and perhaps the minor ones as well, but I didn't check), is gender reversed.
It seems a bit strained...and I don't see the point to it...other than turning the misogyny to misandry. I guess some people would see that as progress. The acting here is the equivalent of Big Foot comic book art: exaggerated movements and ennunciation. And in that, it pretty much works, the humor comes through. However, the staging and costuming is Elizabethan Aged, and that grates a bit. Better to have set the thing on Themyscira and let the costuming match that scenario. Otherwise, there's an aftertaste of Political Correctness which interferes with my pleasure. Add to this mix that there's a character in a wheelchair which is clearly not compatible with Elizabethan technology. And the character (Curtis) who signs instead of speaking. Yeah. A bit too much if a muchness.
Consistency is all I ask.
That said, it was a pleasant enough 2 1/2 hour diversion. But it could've been a lot better. I'm fine with reframing / recontextualizing Shake-speare... but internal logic really must be maintained, I think.
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P.S. Upon further reflection, this version if the play does accomplish one thing via the womanization of Petruchio: it shows that a woman can be as crass, violent, and brutish as a man. If that was the aim, then Mission Accomplished.
Act IV, scene 3, l. 9: "[I] Am starved for meat, giddy for lack of sleep...."
Act IV, scene 3, l. 199: "It shall be what o'clock I say it is."
So...man to woman or woman to man, this play revolves around torture and brainwashing. Funny, huh?
🤢
11/11 to 11/12/25 Can't say that I'd recommend this one. Here's hoping that the scholars got it right, and that this was Shake-speare's first play. That way there's some excuse for it being so bad.
(2) Henry VI, Part One
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