The Taming of the Shrew

"Hall’s staging discharges the brutality but frames it and so raises questions about where it comes from. It is a powerful, unsettling approach"

- FINANCIAL TIMES

After receiving critical and public acclaim for A Comedy of Errors and Richard III during their visit to Spain two years ago, the British company Propeller, specialists par excellence in the interpretation of the works of Shakespeare (The Independent newspaper, for example, said of the company that "the overriding feeling with Propeller is that of a fresh, corporal and totally modern Shakespeare"), return to Madrid with two new productions, Twelfth Night and The Taming of the Shrew.

In The Taming Of The Shrew, two disguised, competing suitors clamour for the hand of the beautiful Bianca whilst fortune-seeker Petruchio agrees to wed her ill-tempered sister Kate. A brash, brutal and darkly comic story in which the difference between marrying for love and marrying for money becomes increasingly difficult to judge.

The Taming of the Shrew was one of Shakespeare's earliest plays and probably written between 1590 and 1591 while Twelfth Night was composed around 1601 at the height of his career and more or less at the same time as Hamlet. However, both comedies address common themes such as love, marriage and profound change as well as disappointments which are revealed by the truth. Both plays explore beautifully how being in love with the wrong person reveals true feeling while at the same time encouraging us to examine what makes happiness.

Propeller's The Taming of the Shrew premiered at the Theatre Royal in Norwich this year on January 24.

 

propeller.org.uk