Can you be induced ... ?

Neither of the two 'filmed' versions I watched of The Taming of the Shrew used the Induction. Few people know it, fewer regard it, some even claim it ain't Shakespeare ... and yet!

The induction does add to the play - if you think about it.

Not only that - if you follow the Oxford 'Complete Works' you are reminded of the framing plot in several places.

Most striking for me is the theatricality of it - if you add the induction (and rest) you never loose track of The Taming of the Shrew as a play - it is the play being performed for 'Sly' - he is (presumably) 'above' - or possibly in the curtained alcove at the back - he may be visible all through the play - maybe he is doubling a role (could he be Petruccio?).

Notice, you need to think of the staging techniques of the Elizabethan theatre to get part of the meaning out ... just as Peter Brook indicates - the platform stage is an active ingredient of the play.

As a play there is a sense of make-believe, of imitation rather than reality - a distancing - which allows the antics of Petruccio and Kate to be seen less as realistic than symbolic - as deliberate 'over the top' for amusement's sake. This is the stuff of farce ... no one is meant to take it seriously as 'serious' ... although farce does play on basic errors of humanity.

The induction starts with Sly being thrown out of an 'alehouse' by a 'baggage' - the Hostess. He falls into a drunken slumber ... this is all extremely extreme. We see excess - we start with lack of control and alcohol induced sleep - surely, when we see both Petruccio and Kate we see a further pair of examples of this extremity? Without the induction there is a danger of taking both male and female character as 'real'?

If played right the 'throwing out' is also funny - knock-about funny. I can't believe, in the spirit of 'Commedia', there was not improvisation - possibly even spoken dialogue improvised - at this point.
I wouldn't like to suggest a full 'Italian treatment' - alla the picture - but we should remember the first folio refers to 'Gremio a Pantelowne' - suggesting knowledge of the stock characters ... and also linking nicely with the induction.

A bit of rough and tumble at the beginning would also set quite a tone for what follows - very un-serious - but then, it is a comedy ... and maybe you should be very cautious when you read the scripts with 'comedy scenes' - especially as later in his writing Shakespeare has a character moan about comedians adding lines.

A word of warning over this one - everyone takes the words against comedians to be a reflection of Shakespeare's own thoughts ... strange, when for most of the rest of the time the very same people are cautioning us about taking the words of any one character as being Shakespeare's ... I have also seen the suggestion that Shakespeare himself, in his role as an actor, was not averse to taking on the 'lighter' roles ... and with his linguistic inventiveness and quick wit, I bet he was a great improviser!

Back to the induction.


A second (and third?) theme introduced in the induction is the 'correct order of things' - as reflected in 'the world turned upside down, of the lord serving the beggar and the male dressing up as female.

Very clearly the first is seen as a source of humour - firmly in the control of the 'Lord'. In the Taming itself, the role Kate takes on as Shrew can be seen in the light of this - both as an 'un-natural' and humorous manifestation ... it is absurd.
Is it also to be seen as role playing? Is she concious of the absurdity herself?

When you add to this the next factor - the play starts with a boy dressing as a woman ... the issue of illusion, of the reality of Kate being played by a boy .. and consequently reflecting a boyish spirit ... only leads to 'complexicate' the whole process.

How is it possible, without the induction, to raise these guidelines and issues?

Well, as I said at the start ... both the versions I watched left them out. The Zefferelli film did nod in the direction of drunkeness - the opening shots include a drunk being punished in a cage (which suspiciously looks like the opening of Othello in Orson Welles's film).

Can the induction work outside the theatre?

I don't think it can .. and I suspect you need a Globe-like theatre for it to really work ... one with a balcony above ...


Technorati Tags: Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare, Petruccio, Kate

Shakespeare's Thoughtful Thug?

Petruccio

I've done two 'Tamings' in the past week - the BBC with John Cleese in the role of Petruccio, and the 'classic' Burton-Zeffirelli film. Perhaps the most interesting character in the play is Petruccio:

The actor taking on the role, if these two productions are anything to go by, has a lot of choices to make.

And I mean choices - there is no one Petruccio: He is myriad. Both these Petruccios work, and work well. I have a preference, but it is not a judgement so much as life-style choice.

Burton plays him as 'one of the lads' - distinctly 'Tough Boyo from the Valleys'. He is using his own reputation as a hard drinking, woman loving, wife swapping film star as part of the character (and Taylor's Kate is tapping in to the same spring. This works - especially in a film which is so 'big' - almost operatic). There is (or rather, can be) a macho element to Petruccio. He can be seen as the beer lout - especially by other characters in the play, but it is a superficiality which Burton manages to go beyond.


There is an attraction for Kate - when Petruccio sees her, he 'falls' - reflecting in Zefferelli's film, the earlier moment when Lucentio sees Bianca. There is a difference: It is not a puppy dog fawning 'love at first sight'; it is a hit by love's dart, I've met my match.

And he has too - this Kate never really submits, she retreats: Petruccio knows it, and doubts his own strength. There is a vulnerability here - his final command is more wish than assertion.

The fight goes on - he will continue drinking, she will continue fighting.

All this reflects the 60s and liberation element - but it is found in the script (although, as with all film adaptations which have any chance of working in the cinema, there is heavy cutting and shifting of things about). What will hold this couple together (if anything does) is the physicality and 'good sex'. The animal magnetism is paramount. The fight is part of the love - this is consenting bondage.

Which contrasts somewhat with John Cleese as Petruccio.

We have here the 'thinking man's' Petruccio.

Very early on in the performance you are made aware that this is an intelligent man: He is very self aware - he knows his wildness is a weakness. He is logical - he works out how to win Katherine. He is human, and knows others are human too.

Like Burton, Cleese is attracted to his Katherine - but it is not the love dart, it is a realisation, and an admiration. The wildness he sees in her is damaging - it needs to be controlled - but he sees the same extreme in himself, and thinks this is the woman who will force him to become more temperate too. This is a woman worth giving up his 'freedom' for.

Love for this Petruccio is to be found in harmony, not discord.

If Burton is wildman, Cleese is 'Madman'. It is Hamlet mad, and 'Tom O'Bedlam mad: It is a Fool madness that has a cleansing and understanding behind it.

When Cleese says 'Cruel to be Kind' - he means it, and has the academic references to prove it.

The BBC script allowed all of the lines, so there is a natural depth to Cleese's performance which Burton had no chance to develop. It was also a production that played whole scenes in one take - again, allowing for a dynamic which the cut,cut,cut of film finds it hard to sustain.

There is an assurance at the end of this 'Taming' which lets you know they will remain together - this is a marriage which will produce children - and what children!

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