Ah, the question of what to do with The Shrew.
In 2024 any production of Shakespeare’s bleak misogynistic comedy ‘The Taming of the Shew’ requires careful rethinking. Under the right direction, it can become a cautionary tale rather than a hateful defamation of women. And, at first there are high hopes for Jude Christian’s cartoonish production.
It begins with Christopher Sly drunkenly stumbling in from the back of The Globe and accidentally throwing a full glass of beer over a carefully selected audience member – he’s met with fury. Katharina – the titular Shrew – is played with fiery vigour by Thalissa Teixeira. But this makes her eventual fall into submission to her paramour Petruchio even more of an indignity. Her painful final speech is mistakenly performed without a trace of irony. The whole thing leaves a bizarrely sour taste.
The style Christian goes for is something she calls ‘an absurd carnival’. It has elements of a childish fever dream: songs and dance break out; a babysitter sits on a side lined sofa, reading magazines to pass the time. The set design by Rosie Elnile has a giant white teddy bear and connecting trampolines at its centre: it is a child’s dream playground. For the wedding, Petruchio comes dressed in a furry worm-like outfit, complete with dark bobbly eyes.
So yes, it looks suitably bonkers. If the hope is to show a woman broken and ripped apart by the hands of male abuse, then Christian has succeeded - Katharina ends as a shell of the person she once was. But, what is the point of it all if the ending remains unchanged and unchallenged? It is a putrid take.
