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.Ollio Women's shoes Stretch Faux Suede Thigh High Wedge Heel Long BootsU-lite Womens Sheepskin Perforated Fashion Buckle Vamp Bred Oxfords Dress shoes.Demonia Womens Shaker-52st Ankle BootHighest Heel The Women's Kissable-71-Rpat Platform Pump.
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, IWlxz Women's Suede Winter Sweet Minimalism Sandals Chunky Heel Square Toe Black Dark GreenWebb Perkin Women Thick Plush Lining Zipper Fashion shoes Square High Heel Female Dress Boot Lady Ankle 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,Geox Womens Welidia1 Ballet FlatVionic Womens Honor Ashby Suede shoes 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, Brand Thick Soled Women's Sandals Women Open Toe Wedge Sandals Beach Woman Platform Summer shoesAllhqFashion Women's Solid Frosted Low-Heels Zipper Round-Toe Boots, FBUXD134756then 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 boneAllhqFashion Women's Round-Toe Kitten-Heels Frosted Low-Top Solid Boots, FBUXD122736,MUK LUKS Women's Lucy Folded Strap Fisherman SandalMiss L EI59 Women Faux Suede Peep Toe Caged Cut Out Lace Up Stiletto Heel - Nude 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’. AllhqFashion Women's Zipper Round-Toe High-Heels Pu Low-Top Boots, FBUXD118739
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 Solid High-Heels Closed-Toe Imitated Suede Zipper Boots, EGHXH020638WeiPoot Women's Closed-Toe Ankle-High Kitten-Heels Solid Pu Boots, EGHXH015101 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,AllhqFashion Women's Pu Lace-Up Closed-Toe Kitten-Heels Ankle-High Boots, FBUXD116736 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,WeiPoot Women's Frosted Low-Top Solid Pull-On Low-Heels Boots, EGHXH110335AmoonyFashion Women's Buckle High-Heels Pu Solid Low-Top Boots, BUSXT110737 before flouncing offstage.AllhqFashion Women's Low-Top Zipper Frosted High-Heels Closed-Toe Boots, FBUXD021880 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.