The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare

Posted on July 30, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I am sure I have read this play before, because I have some vague memory of it; but I don’t know when. My reread is inspired by the Houston Shakespeare Festival: I’m going to go see both this, and Othello, in the next week. Fellow Houstonians, don’t miss this event! These two plays are both showing 4-5 times, in the next 8 days or so, at Miller Outdoor Theatre. For FREE. It’s an awesome summer tradition; I’ve been attending the Shakespeare Fest every summer since I was small. Don’t think I’m going to find time to reread Othello, sadly.

So. The Taming of the Shrew is not one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays (and was rather hard to find at Half Price Books. Lots of Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night’s Dream. Thus my very sweet, but visually unstimulating, little Yale Shakespeare blue cloth-bound hardback, pictured), but I think it’s a nice little romp. It’s a comedy involving two sisters: Bianca, the younger, has several suitors; she is attractive and admired. Her older sister Katherina, however, is very difficult, sharp-tongued, scolding, and generally unattractive to prospective suitors. Their father Baptista forbids any suitors to Bianca until such time as Katherina is married. I’m not entirely clear on whether it was his express intention or not, but the result of this is that Bianca’s suitors set out looking for a husband for Katherina, aka the shrew. They find a willing suitor, Petruchio, who feels that Kate’s wealth is worth the fight, and he has a plan. Thus the title: Petruchio sets out to tame the shrew, using such ugly, abusive, domineering, insane behavior that she gives up being “shrewish” and submits to his every desire, agreeing with any crazy thing he says. (The sun is the moon. An old man is a beautiful young maiden. Yes, husband, anything you say.) Petruchio weds, and tames, Kate; sundry other characters wed too. Lucentio marries Bianca, and Hortensio marries a widow (also for her money). The three new husbands make a bet on their wives, as to who can be shown to be most obedient. Petruchio’s reformed shrew wins him the bet, and she ends the play with a speech arguing that a woman should serve and obey her “lord” (husband).

There has been much controversy over this play, pretty much since it was born, regarding gender/marital roles, misogyny, feminism. I’m a bit inclined to agree with the camp that says Shakespeare was actually on the women’s side and was being instructively tongue-in-cheek, but mostly I’m willing to sit back and hear what you think; I don’t find it entirely clear what Shakespeare had in mind, from this distance. (I never did finish Fraser’s Young Shakespeare and thus have not started his Shakespeare: The Later Years. I found the writing awfully dry. If I ever finish these, or find a more palatable biography, perhaps I’ll take a stab at pretending I know what he had in mind. Until then, I am agnostic on this point.) At any rate, it’s an interesting study. Yes, Petruchio’s treatment of Kate is offensive; yes, her final speech makes me shiver. But she wasn’t a respectably independent woman early on; she was just kind of bitchy. Neither of them is sympathetic. So, it’s not as clear-cut as, Petruchio destroys Kate’s fine and virtous strong-woman spirit, or anything.

At any rate, I’m almost certain the upcoming performance will be the first time I’ve seen this play onstage, and I look forward to seeing how the Festival handles the political problems of The Taming of the Shrew. You can expect to see my write-up of the show soon.

Anybody read this play? How do you react to the chauvinism?

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book beginnings on Friday: Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

Posted on June 24, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

Back to Jeeves, we are! I so enjoyed Thank You, Jeeves that I picked this up on an evening when I was feeling a little down and not quite ready for bed. Thankfully, Wodehouse will cheer a girl up. Since I listened to the first on audio (and LOVED the narrator), I had that voice (and accent) to read this one in, inside my head. I’m loving it. We begin:

“Jeeves,” I said, “may I speak frankly?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“What I have to say may wound you.”
“Not at all, sir.”
“Well, then –”
No — wait. Hold the line a minute. I’ve gone off the rails.

I like it. 🙂 If you haven’t checked Wodehouse out yet, I recommend him for purely silly, clever British humor.

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Thank You, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (audio)

Posted on June 9, 2011 by pagesofjulia

What a charming little venture into the British peerage. This may be a first for me, but I think the audio format actually improved this experience! (I actually have Right Ho, Jeeves at home in paperback, so I can compare then. Although the voice may already be established in my head… we may never know.)

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was an extremely prolific British humorist; he wrote plays, poems, short stories, novels, and more (I’m getting this mostly from Wikipedia, FYI, along with a general sense I’ve had of him). The stories in his Jeeves series are among his best-known, and I, not knowing much about him, decided to start there.

Thank You, Jeeves is just silliness, but of the most enjoyable sort.

Bertram Wooster (Bertie), our narrator, retires to the country when London society ostracizes his playing of the banjolele, and for the same reason he loses his valet, Jeeves, who can’t stand the playing of the banjolele any more than London can. Jeeves enters the employment of Bertie’s old friend Chuffy, who also houses Bertie in a cottage on his country estate. American millionaire Stoker shows up to discuss business dealings, along with his daughter Pauline, formerly engaged to Bertie, soon engaged to Chuffy. A rather Shakespearean case of mistaken identities, love triangles, and well-meaning bumblings ensues. (Like so often in Shakespeare, a good dose of Telling Everyone The Truth In A Forthright Manner would have solved everything early on, but then there wouldn’t have been a funny book.) Also in Shakespearean fashion, the servant Jeeves is a sharper tack than his employers. Eventually the talented, intelligent, well-read, scheming, and discreet Jeeves solves everyone’s problems up neatly, reuniting several estranged couples, keeping everyone out of jail, and even returning Bertie to London where he belongs, and himself to Bertie’s employ. But not before I get to enjoy all sorts of hilarity and irony, in the events of the book but most especially in the dialog. I think this Wodehouse is a master of goofy dialog, and this narrator Jonathan Cecil performed it admirably. Husband did not follow the action at all but greatly enjoyed hearing the characters exclaim over Lord Whatwhatly (I don’t know how this is spelled as I was listening, not reading, but it is funny-sounding).

I will definitely search out more Wodehouse; he is deserving of his fine reputation as a humorist. This was funny and lighthearted and easy to “read.” I recommend.

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