Necessary Cat’s adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew was a solid amateur Shakespeare performance. It was a joy to watch a cast so full of enthusiasm and to hear the musical lilt of Shakespearean English fall so naturally from the actors’ lips.
The play began with various feminist monologues played over the speakers, before the actors burst into life from the back of the room, cutting the speech short and thus beginning the famous tale of misogynist men and the women that try to survive them.
What I did like about this adaptation of a play that has been done so many times (if you haven’t seen 10 things I hate about you, what are you doing?) was that, thrown into the beginning of the 20th century, they approached the play with modern eyes, without attempting to make it more palatable. The conviction with which the actors spoke forced me to remind myself that these were actors saying lines, not scarily convincing sexist misogynists.
I was excited to watch an adaption of this patriarchal play set at a period in time when the women’s suffrage movement was spreading like wildfire, but other than a few green and purple sashes adorned by Kate and Bianca, there wasn’t much evidence of the effects of this modern context on the material of the play (a difficult task when strictly keeping the Bard’s original script, I’ll admit.) An epilogue from the actress of Kate was added to the end of the play, challenging the audience on why they laugh at jokes made at the expense of the female characters, educating us on the torturous reality of a woman living in the early 20th century. However, I was left unsatisfied. Had I had time to stay for the second play of the night, The Tamer Tamed, or The Woman’s Prize – a sequel comedy written by John Fletcher and set after the end of The Taming of the Shrew – perhaps my expectations for this adaption and my feminist longings for Kate to regain her rage and stand up for herself would have been fulfilled.
As the play came to a close, it was a joy to watch actors of all ages and experience line up together for final bows, united by their love for Shakespeare, which was brilliantly conveyed through the passion with which they spoke and their spot on comedic timing.
The Taming of the Shrew is running until 30 August at Hill Street Theatre. Buy tickets here.
Image by Angela Harkness Robertson, provided for press use.
