The Classical Theatre Company will wrap up its Season of Iconic Women with William Shakespeare’s comic masterpiece, The Taming of the Shrew. Having not produced a Shakespeare piece since Henry V in 2015, nor a Shakespeare comedy since The Merchant of Venice in 2013, CTC is primed and ready to dive into The Bard once again.
The Taming of the Shrew follows the story of Katherine who is being sold off as a wife by her father to the highest bidder. Her boldness and stubborn streak have made her unmarriable by society, but her sister, Bianca, cannot marry until the elder sister has been so. Enter Petruchio, a cad who is determined to win over Katherine to be his wife. An explosive battle of the sexes ensues in this electrically charged love story that will have audiences crying with laughter.
“This play is my favorite Shakespeare comedy,” says CTC Executive Artistic Director John Johnston. “But it’s got some problematic aspects that don’t really play at face value for a modern audience. The idea of a woman being ‘tamed’ by a man to be married is creepy at best. So, to address this issue, our production is going to set the play as a mid-20th-century sitcom. Think Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show, or The Dick Van Dyke Show. Using the script to explore the values that we once held in our popular culture, and do still to this day, in some respects. Our goal is to examine and critique the treatment of women rather than glorify it, and this lens of pre-feminist situational comedies will help us to do that.”