SSF’s Shakespeare-In-The-Park productions present a very difficult dilemma for every director. When considering your text you have to be aware of the limitations and needs of our family friendly productions. The primary consideration is usually editing the length of the script to be one and one-half-hours. We don’t change the language and leave in the arcane puns and sexual innuendos that usually resonate with adults and fly over the heads of children. How do you do that and still get your message across to the audience?
The Taming of the Shrew (TOTS hereafter) has a number of challenging devices that are very easy to cut but sometimes difficult to justify. First, TOTS as most people know it, is a play-within-a-play that begins with the “Induction” scenes where a drunken man, Christopher Sly, is presented with a vision (drunken stupor/trick?) of love and marriage in 16th century Italy/England. The result is the story many people know that has been subsequently translated into the musical, Kiss Me Kate, and the film, Ten Things I Hate About You. So cutting the “Induction” scenes worked without affecting the main storyline.
The second enigma is the final scene where Kate professes the subservient duty a woman owes to her husband as a result of a bet among the three men; Petruchio. Lucentio and Hortensio. I found my answer to this problem speech of admonition to the other two wives that is often thought to be sarcastic/tongue-in-cheek. Petruchio replies, “...Come on and kiss me Kate!”- an echo of Act 5, Scene 1 that ends with Petruchio urging Kate to kiss him in public, against the social mores of the day (that remain a taboo among many in our modern parental generation). So, I chose to cut the final scene and end with the same kind of kiss in a slightly different but well understood context.
This final edit serves the dual purpose of shortening the show to our desired length and deemphasizing the anti-feminist/misogynistic themes inherent in Kate’s last speech. We are emphasizing the universal themes and problems relating to love, marriage, money, social class and courting with a heavy dose of physical comedy. Enjoy!
Special Thanks:
Mayor Stephanie Miner, Thornden Park Association, Jyvonna Chambers
and Thornden Park Bulldogs
This production of The Taming of the Shrew is dedicated to the memory of
Nancy McCarty and her devotion to Syracuse theater in general and SSF and
Shakespeare-In-The-Park in particular. Her attendance will be missed
but her presence will always be felt.
The Producer, Director, and Boards of the Syracuse Shakespeare Festival
regret any errors or omissions in this program.
