Dartmouth Events

Presented in conjunction with the live presentation of Stratford’s Coriolanus, Nov 30–Dec 2

Courtship or conquest? The breaking down of a defiant spirit—or a or a breakthrough that liberates a heart deprived of love? Will you ever see a contest of wills that’s fiercer or funnier— or more hotly controversial? The lovely Bianca is being pursued by three men, but her father won’t listen to any of their proposals until his elder daughter Katherina (a force to be reckoned with) is married first. It seems hopeless that any man could go toe to toe with her and survive.

Enter Petruchio, with unmatched swagger and confidence. After depriving Katherina of food and sleep, he mansplains his bride-to-be into submission—then asks the audience to intervene: “He that knows better how to tame a shrew, now let him speak.” This moment hangs long enough for the audience to feel uncomfortably complicit in the play’s misogyny, to ask themselves what they are doing in their own bystander lives to speak up.

The Stratford Festival production takes a critical approach to this problem play without losing any of its humor or fire. The production re-incorporates the “Induction” from Shakespeare’s original text to place this nuptial comedy in an ironic context, and it incorporates elements of commedia dell’arte to lampoon the competitive masculinity of Bianca’s suitors.

For decades this play has occupied a tricky place in the Shakespeare canon, but Stratford’s production “allows the play's misogynist men to sit in their own stink.” With awe-inspiring performances from a topnotch repertory company of actors, this stunning interpretation of the Bard’s battle-of-the-sexes comedy doesn’t pull any punches.

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