The Taming of the Shrew

I can’t think of a better play to wrestle with our current American moment than one about the ridiculousness and danger of the patriarchy. The Taming of the Shrew 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, about 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, in which 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 living and loving. And those who have succeeded in the problematic status quo 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 impacted people based on gender (not to mention race and class) to the recent pendulum swing that has resulted in the current political moment we inhabit, it has been revealed just how much the world of Padua is our own. 

Despite the limitations of their society, Kate and Petruchio create a unique game of life that 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 might just find something miraculous on the other side.