Why produce The Taming of the Shrew? In any time, but particularly in this time, as our society is doing the critical work of trying to refind and redefine ourselves after a global pandemic? It is a play that has always ignited passionate feelings in audiences and artists, in large part because of a debate about the author’s point of view. Is this a misogynistic play or a play about misogyny?

Here’s what we know…

The world of Taming is one where men control the narrative: of how success is defined, of what makes a desirable woman and—equally important—what does not. It’s a world in which women are judged and punished for not adhering to the rules of the game as dictated by a patriarchal society, where love is a commodity, women are sold to the highest bidder, and wealth and power define what it is to be a man. And it’s a world in which anger in women is unacceptable and blamed wholly on the woman expressing it, never on the society and actions engendering it.

And in the world of Taming, it is a revolutionary act to forge a path for partnership outside the traditional system. It feels meaningful to me that the most successful marriage we witness in this story is that of two people who decide to create a new way of life and love. And those who have succeeded in the problematic mainstream approach end up miserable or alone. This has to tell us something about Shakespeare’s point of view. Would a writer who is celebrating the patriarchy make the members of that club the ultimate losers of the game?

I wish we lived in a world where Taming felt dated and reflected a sexist and gendered time that we no longer inhabit. But it just doesn’t. The stakes of this play feel more raw and personal than ever before. From the 2016 election to the #MeToo movement to the radical inequities of how the pandemic has impacted people based on race, class, and gender, it has been revealed just how much the world of Padua is our own.

In Kate and Petruchio, Shakespeare gifts us two radical souls who possess the courage to fight for a new kind of love that flies in the face of (and plants the seeds to transform) the status quo. Our playwright is refreshingly honest about the challenges: most significantly, how do you begin to change the world when you are also a product of that world’s failings?

Despite the limitations of their society, Kate and Petruchio create a unique game of life they can play together. In this, I hear Shakespeare proposing that if the system is broken, our job is to do the radical thing of creating a new one. That process may be messy. And we will likely fail many times along the way. But if we keep at it, we may just find something miraculous on the other side.

Photo by Jenny Baker.