The Taming of the Shrew: Petruchio ROCKS Because...

Behold, a closer look at The Taming of the Shrew, complete with themes of gender equality, gender superiority, and some psychobabble that may or may not make sense to anyone but me.
To be clear, I like my women like I like my dynamite: Fuses of variable lengths and lit by something other than gaslight, a stance that has made me hate a Shakespearian protagonist named Petruchio for more than half my life, which is why it is to my shock and alarm that he has become one of my favorite characters in the history of ever. Here's some of how the weasel did it:

00:54 The Taming of the Shrew Synopsis
04:42 How latter-day directors approach this play
06:20 How Shakespeare fans plead this play's case
09:35 The Framing of the Shrew and her Taming (story within a story)
12:10 My weird-ass self-insert hypothesis
13:17 The sadness of the Shrew and her family
14:50 Dr. Ramani makes the internet smarter about Narcissism.
16:15 What can Petruchio do to help?

Earnest thanks to Amy Attaway at Kentucky Shakespeare (and also apologies not getting your name into the video proper. Script-Writer Me mis-transposed it and thought you were "Amy Atwater" for some reason) and Dr. Ramani for raising the property values of this video. Please - oh please - check out Ramani's work on Narcissism. It's some of the most helpful stuff on the internet:

The Narcissist's Underbelly
   • The Narcissist's Underbelly  

Also if you'd like to see more of the extraordinary performances from which I cribbed my footage for this video...

The Taming of The Shrew with Raul Julia and Meryl Streep
   • The Taming of the Shrew  - Meryl Streep - ...  

The Taming of the Shrew ala the American Conservatory Theater
   • The Taming of the Shrew.  American Conserv...  

And because Amy Attaway shared lots of good information (only some of which the video touched on), here is a more complete version of our Q&A:

Is there room for the interpretation that Mr. Shakespeare was an abuse survivor?
...[and]...
Is such a scenario at least as plausible as the average internet edge lord declaring, "Spoiler Alert: The Lion King is Hamlet" and putting his feet up?

**Wow... this is something I've never thought about. I tend to stay away from analyzing WS's personal life as it relates to the plays, just because I don't find it useful as a director. I know a lot of people do! It's just not something that works for me personally. So: is there room for interpretation - sure! Do I have anything to add to your pondering - sadly no.

How do audiences generally respond to The Taming of the Shrew? Is there anything that consistently surprises them on seeing / reading the show for the first time?

**This all depends on the production. The title is a great sell, probably because of the movie. Directors almost always approach the play with some kind of angle that doesn't involve Kate actually being "tamed" in the way it was likely played in Shakespeare's day. I'm sure today's audiences would have a problem with the idea that a woman should be subservient to her husband!

Do Shakespeare companies ever get nervous about the changing sensibilities of the audience (ex: Would you ever expect to see a Content Warning as a precursor to The Taming of the Shrew?)?

**I think I accidentally answered this above.

How does someone who loves this show feel about Petruchio? From what angle can an audience member best see him through the eyes of love?

**People love a clown, and the wilder Petruchio is the more audiences tend to like him. The story works best, I think, when Kate and Petruchio see themselves reflected in each other and form a real team by the end of the play.

Could the framing device of the "story within a story" suggest that Mr. Shakespeare was nervous about the audiences' reaction even back then?
Might he have been removing the events in Padua that extra step to make extra clear to the patrons of The Globe that "This is a show, not a prescribed way of life"?

**Yes, probably! I also think he might be giving the production permission to make the characters even less realistic and "believable" in service of the comedy.

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