Why, there’s a wench!
It can be easy to overlook the fact that texts hundreds of years old can be controversial. Non-religious texts, that is! But having seen a production of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew this week, in the beautiful grounds of St. Augustine’s Abbey, it would be foolish to pretend this isn’t the case. You could actually feel the tension in the audience rise as we approached the rather sticky conclusion of the play, particularly the husbands nervously wondering how their wives would react to Katharina’s final speech. Even if you don’t know the play, you probably know of the speech, particularly this bit:
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war when they should kneel for peace
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway
When they are bound to serve, love and obey
Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
…
Place your hands beneath your husband’s foot,
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease
It’s not really an easy pill to swallow, is it? ‘Let your husband walk all over you.’ Not a message I’d like to give to anyone. But of course, it’s not quite so simple. In theatre, the text is only part of the equation, and whether the dramatist likes it or not, the director, the actors and even (to a lesser, though also more complicated, extent) the audience can have as great an influence on the play’s meaning and tone as the words do. In this particular case, there are various ways of playing the scene or interpreting the action which make the ending far easier for modern audiences to accept. Whether you should do so is a different question entirely, which I shall dodge around and leave for others. Continue reading
The Singing Librarian Talks 