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First, I should tell you I am not a Shakespeare scholar; I am a Shakespeare lover. What I study is performance: how a play impacts an audience; and how a director, an actor, or a scenic designer interprets a play to create that impact. Reading a play is a rich, textual and intellectual experience. Seeing a play is a gestalt. How, then, do I address the valid concerns of a scholar such as Harold Bloom who wrote "that we might be better off with public readings of Shakespeare….since he is now almost invariably poorly directed and inadequately played …." (Bloom 729), or of Charles Lamb who once wrote of The Tempest, in his essay "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare, Considered with Reference to their Fitness for Stage Representation:" "But is the Tempest of Shakespeare at all a subject for stage representation? …to have a conjuror brought before us in his conjuring-gown, with his spirits about him…involves such a quantity of the hateful incredible that all our reverence for the author cannot hinder us from perceiving such gross attempts upon the senses to be in the highest degree childish and inefficient." While Lamb's position is more extreme than Bloom's, both scholars raise the question: Should Shakespeare ever be performed, and if so, how? A performance is a vehicle through which the script is brought to life. However, as critic Daniel Seltzer has noted, "…performance, while by nature unlike an act of literary criticism, always has one of the same results: it cannot avoid implying a point of view. (Seltzer 311) This suggests that the artists associated with a performance must develop and share a consistent thematic appreciation of the text for the performance to cohere. Further, drama is a force, an energy that requires tangible expression. When Lear howls, his world, the stage, must echo that cry and send it deep into the essential being of the playgoer. The words on the page suggest Lear's despair. The words performed thrust us, the audience, into the heart of Lear's despair. In A Midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare has Theseus express some of the aristocratic contempt for the theatre current in his day; however, Theseus' rejection is expressed in such intense poetic language, that it has the opposite effect, both defending and defining the playwright's art:
Lamb, and the Romantic poets and critics who shared his ideas about performance, believed that imagination was the highest mark of poetry, and so Lear and Hamlet were more powerful on the page, when created in the individual reader's imagination, than when performed on the stage. (Bate & Jackson 93) However, I believe that Shakespeare's description of the imagination as a link between heaven and earth, in other words, between the ethereal and the physical, supports instead an interpretation articulated by critic William Hazlitt. Hazlitt was frequently incensed by bad productions, but he remained convinced that, at its best, the stage "at once gives a body to our thoughts." (Bate & Jackson 93) Or as Shakespeare noted, "gives to airy nothing/a local habitation and a name." Hazlitt also suggested that, by identifying with what we see on stage, we can be taken out of ourselves and brought to an imaginative empathy with humanity that "has not the pride and remoteness of abstract [philosophical] science." (Bate & Jackson 93) To experience is the bridge to empathy. I love to read Shakespeare and to let my imagination "perform" his poetry. However, I believe that, ultimately, it is more meaningful to experience Shakespeare than simply to read him. The imaginative empathy engendered by a performance, even a problematic one, is more authentic than the intellectual interaction engendered by reading. Thus, I disagree strongly with Bloom: I believe that it is better to experience Shakespeare in any performance than never to experience Shakespeare at all. Today, I would like to share with you a brief discussion of the history of performance, especially of Shakespeare, as a basis for defending the recent "revival with alterations" of The Taming of the Shrew, the "teen film" 10 Things I Hate About You. I believe that this delightful film belongs to the tradition of adapting Shakespeare for contemporary audiences actually begun by Shakespeare himself when he had to revise his own works to meet the restrictions of the 1606 Act banning profanity from plays. While it is true that 10 Things I Hate About You takes extensive liberties with the play, it remains within the envelope of the play's themes, characters, and plots. Once I have located the film in the tradition of Shakespeare in performance, I would like to show you a few scenes from the film and have you look at them against the text of the original play. What did Shakespeare intend, and how successful is the film in communicating that intention to the audience? Is the vision of the performing artists consistent with their understanding of the play? And does the play thrust us into the heart of Kate's despair as we tangle with the psychological complexities of both her shrewishness and her taming? Let us enter into the world of what is perhaps Shakespeare's most misunderstood love story, The Taming of the Shrew and see how 10 Things I Hate About You measures up. I have entitled my presentation "Revived, with Alterations." This phrase appeared on the title pages of Restoration acting editions of Shakespeare's plays. (Bate & Jackson 506) The Restoration comedies of Etheridge, Wycherley and Congreve were biting social satires. They were sophisticated and appealed to an audience more aristocratic than eclectic. In comparison, Shakespeare's plays seemed somewhat tame and insipid. Ridiculous as it may seem to us, the question became: "how do we rescue Shakespeare?" In 1660, Charles II issued warrants to Thomas Killigrew and Sir William Davenant, appointing them as… the patentholders of two royal theatrical troupes. (Bate & Jackson 456) Although a lifelong devotee of Shakespeare, Davenant recognized that, to mount successful Restoration productions of the Bard's plays, he would have to make them more contemporary. (Bate & Jackson 506) "In February 1622 the successful production of Davenant's The Law Against Lovers - a devoutly royalist version of Measure for Measure…established an enduring pattern by which …Shakespeare's plays would be placed before the …public in substantially rewritten form." (Bate & Jackson 506) Among those plays which had success in "revived" but "altered" form were A Midsummer Night's Dream, adapted as Purcell's opera The Fairy Queen, King Lear, adapted by Tate in 1681 complete with happy ending, and Davenant's Macbeth. By the mid-18th century, a movement had developed which we now sometimes refer to as Bardolotry. Although he was not responsible for the notion of Shakespeare's divinity and immortality, David Garrick, the major force in the theatre at that time, certainly subscribed to that notion. Garrick (1717-1779) was a respected actor/director. He also had an instinct for what would make a commercial success. Therefore, while he had more respect for the texts of the plays than his Restoration counterparts, he also "revived, with alteration." Indeed, one of Garrick's achievements was a three-act farce version of The Taming of the Shrew. Garrick stripped "away the induction and anything else extraneous to the central line of action…abbreviating or redistributing any long speeches, as well as ensuring the acceptability of language." (Bate & Jackson 80) Thus, he created a production which reshaped Shakespeare's attitude toward marriage, making it acceptable to an 18th century audience. It is also important to note that adaptation was an inevitable byproduct of the fact that women now played women's roles. Beginning in the Restoration, women played important roles in the theatrical troupes, and their sensibilities affected performance. In the Folger Library in Washington, for example, there is a copy of Ellen Terry's performance script of Othello. In the margin, she scribbled alternative words for "whore," since she was not comfortable having that word used in performance. Adaptation of Shakespeare's plays continued in the 1800's. There was a common assumption that the dramatic construction of Shakespeare's texts was an unfortunate by-product of his inadequate theatrical facility. (The judgement is the 19th century's. Many late 20th century texts have demonstrated the wonderful flexibility and theatricality of the Elizabethan stage.) Their belief led to productions in which scenes were cut, moved, or adjusted to facilitate the late 19th century staging technique of creating visual tableaux at the "crisis" points in the play. (Bate & Jackson 124) In the 20th century, with the establishment of a National Theatre in England and the formation of "Shakespearean" companies, the concern for authorial intent reestablished Shakespeare's original texts on the stage for the first time in, essentially, centuries. Now, "adaptation" referred primarily to production methods, with one school insisting on traditional production values and another on experimentation. The first modern-dress Hamlet was staged in 1925 by Barry Jackson. (Bate & Jackson 146) There was a feeling that "in avoiding experimentation, the theatre was failing to find for Shakespeare's plays a modern social and political relevance." (Bate & Jackson 153) This is the crux of the matter. Earlier in this presentation, I defined performance as the vehicle through which the script is brought to life. The implied question in this definition is, brought to life for whom? Once again, we come back to the audience. The play must be brought to life for a particular group of people. It seems to me that a successful adaptation of Shakespeare must do two things: it must respect the authorial intent of the play; and it must communicate that intent effectively to a particular group of people. "That the proper due to Shakespeare's 'classic' status is a reverence which respects his original language, staging, and costuming is a powerful view, still manifest in the hostility which many playgoers feel towards 'modern dress' productions and 'tampering with the text.' But a stronger argument is that Shakespeare's 'classic' status has been created by the very process of adaptation and mutation. It is these which keep him alive. (Bate & Jackson 4) Shakespeare's plays are both works of genius and works of great art because they rise to the level of our common humanity. It remains for the contemporary performer (of whatever age) to retain Shakespeare's humanity and imbue it with the contemporary commonality. These are the two criteria we must use as we "judge" 10 Things I Hate About You. In brief, The Taming of the Shrew is the story of Katherine and Petruchio. Katherine, or Kate, is the daughter of Baptista and the older sister of Bianca. Throughout Padua, Bianca is known as a fair beauty, while Kate is called "Kate the curst," or the shrew. Hortensio, Gremio, and Lucentio all want to marry Bianca. No one wants to marry Kate. Baptista, however, has decided that the only way to get rid of his difficult daughter is to insist she marry before Bianca. Now everyone has a stake in finding the shrew a husband. Enter Petruchio of Verona, friend of Hortensio. Petruchio agrees to marry Kate for her dowry. In addition, to end all the jibes regarding who would wear the pants in his marriage, he takes on The Taming of the Shrew. Authorial intent is the heart of any dispute about performance. What does this play mean…according to Shakespeare. The critics have always been troubled by The Taming of the Shrew. The great Shakespearean scholar, E. K. Chambers, could not accept the play as comedy. He believed that it was a farce. True comedy would present an ethical standpoint. However, Chambers could see none in Shrew. To him, it was merely a "humorous and dispassionate observation" (Chambers 44) of the eternal duel of the sexes. In this light, the play would seem to defend the traditional Elizabethan model of the husband as lord and master, and the wife as tamed slave. However, beginning in the 1960's, as feminism and humanism took hold of the modern consciousness, The Taming of the Shrew was examined in a new light. Critics such as Goddard and Bloom asked us to recognize that Kate is an emotionally abused child, denied by her father, Baptista, who clearly favors the younger Bianca. Indeed, her father has actually fostered Kate's terrible reputation, always reinforcing the perception and never challenging it. In this light, Petruchio is seen as Kate's savior. Bloom calls "their final shared reality…a kind of conspiracy against the rest of us: Petruchio gets to swagger, and Kate will rule him and the household, perpetually acting her role as the reformed shrew. (Bloom 29) Further, as Goddard notes, "the most psychologically sound as well as the most delightful way of taking The Taming of the Shrew is the topsy-turvy one. Kate…is no shrew at all except in the most superficial sense. Bianca, on the other hand, is just what her sister is supposed to be. (Goddard 68) Thus, the play becomes Kate's and Petruchio's love story, and in the 1960 Stratford production with Dame Peggy Ashcroft, the audience was treated to the "revelation that Kate could be so dignified in defeat. Ashcroft may have been the first shrew to enact a recognition of her own mirror image in Petruchio's misbehaviour, and through that recognition, to fall in love with her persecutor." (Bate & Jackson 162) Subsequent productions found in the play "not love, but an endorsement of systematic male oppression." (Bate & Jackson 163) At its most extreme, as in the 1986 production by Turkish director Erten, Kate is "shattered when she falls in love with Petruchio. Her subsequent humiliation on the journey back to Padua is a source, not of laughter, but of breakdown. She comes to the banquet with her arms swathed in a shawl, speaks her aria of submission and throws off the shawl to lay her hands on the floor. Only …(then), as she is about to die, do we see that she has slit her wrists." (Bate & Jackson 164-165) But is The Taming of the Shrew really about the patriarchal subjugation of women, or the historic battle of the sexes? Or does this play make use of a traditional plot device to further one of Shakespeare's most common themes, one repeated over and over again in both the tragedies and the comedies? The most important thing to remember about The Taming of the Shrew is that, not only is it a play within a play, it is a play about playing. In the almost never performed Induction (preface) to the play, a Lord, plays a servant, Christopher Sly, a drunkard, is persuaded to play a Lord, and Bartholomew, the page, to play his wife. Then, a group of actors perform a play for Sly and company in which Lucentio plays Cambio, Hortensio plays Litio, Tranio plays Lucentio, and a Pedant plays Vincentio. This role-playing, which explodes in such profusion in the play, is clearly a pattern which cannot be ignored. The unnatural influence of pretense, the confusion of illusion and reality, the exploration of the relationship between seeming and being are all motifs that recur in Shakespeare's works, and here, in The Taming of the Shrew, they assume a centrality which is compelling. One of the metaphors used by Shakespeare to highlight this theme is
the clothing characters assume to confirm their role-playing identities.
Such costuming is artificial. It is a mask which conceals truth. Tranio
must put on Lucentio's robes to assume his role. Hortensio does the
same, saying, "Now shall my friend Petruchio do me grace/And offer
me, disguised in sober robes,/ To old Baptista as a schoolmaster."
(I.ii.128-130) The acceptance of these disguises confirms that this
is a world which judges by externals. Literally, you are what you wear.
Baptista's comments reaffirm the norm of this society which places
its values on externals. However, Petruchio, in his response, challenges
this norm. "To me she's married, not unto my clothes." (III.ii.113)
Unfortunately, no one really hears him.
This passage is both humorous and telling. Tranio is clearly stating that all this role-playing is a reversal of the natural order: a child is begetting a father. In Shakespeare's world, the natural order is "the good." This was one of "certain fundamental assumptions which every thoughtful Elizabethan took for granted….man is not something by himself; he is…'a piece of the order of things'…." (Spencer 5) Further, this natural order of which man "is so essential a part, and which makes the structure of the world…(is) a single unity created by the hand of God." (Spencer 6) Thus, any attack on the natural order must be challenged, and this pretense is unnatural and wrong. By contrast, anything of the natural order must be good. Thus it is significant that Kate, herself, is presented as wholly natural, despite her reputation as a shrew. When Petruchio is first told about Kate, he compares her "brawling scold" to other natural forces. Think you a little din can daunt mine ears? Petruchio, another force of nature, believes he and Kate will be a good match, for he is "as peremptory as she proud-minded,/ And where two raging fires meet together/ They do consume the thing that feeds their fury." (II.i.131-133) Indeed, when Kate hits Litio with a lute, Petruchio exclaims, "Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench./ I love her ten times more than e're I did." (II.i.160-161) He, alone, appreciates her natural passion. It is important to note that, while others call Kate "curst" and a shrew, Petruchio rightly interprets her behavior as "proud-minded." He sees beneath the surfaces to the truths below:
This is the true lesson Petruchio has been trying to teach Kate. To those who will see, the truth will peereth out. To those who will be blind, it matters not what clothes you wear: those of a shrew or those of an obedient wife. It is the truth within that matters. This passage also suggests that Kate is neither really a shrew nor playing at one. She is, rather as Petruchio has described her: proud-minded and determined to be respected for herself. We see this both in comments such as Petruchio's "If she be curst it is for policy" [cunning] (II.i.294), and in Kate's own statements. For example, when she challenges Petruchio's insistence that they miss their own wedding dinner, she notes: "I see a woman may be made a fool/If she had not a spirit to resist." (III.ii.216-127) And later, when Petruchio rips apart the dress the tailor has made for Kate, she argues for her right to speak:
And so we come to Kate's final, and most controversial speech. In it, she appears to tell Bianca and the widow to obey their husbands with no questions asked. However, since the entire play has been built to direct the audience to look for the sun behind the clouds, the truth beneath the appearance, I think that we must accept, as Bloom and Goddard both assert, that the speech is not an exhortation to wives to assume a subservient role to their husbands. That is the clothing the speech wears, but that clothing is but a cloud. The sun shines behind Kate's speech, and it is a sun which pierces and condemns the superficiality of a society which cannot see the value in a woman such as Kate. The difficult "clothes" the speech wears are found in lines such as "unknit that threat'ning unkind brow/And dart not scornful glances from those eyes/To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor," (V.ii.141-142) and "Thy husband is thy lord/thy life/thy keeper,/Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee/And for thy maintenance…." (V.ii.151-153) If these lines were the full substance of Kate's speech, we would, indeed, have to accept it as a literal injunction to obey. However, even if all we had was Petruchio's assertion that we must look behind the clouds for the truth to peer out, we could begin to challenge Kate's speech based on what she next says. But, we have more. We also have Petruchio's second lesson to his beloved: how to dissemble. In Act IV, scene v, Petruchio shows Kate how to function in this society.In the full of day Petruchio announces, "Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!" Kate is confused. "The moon? The sun. It is not moonlight now."
Hortensio, who is a true creature of this society, tells Kate "Say as he says or we shall never go." (IV.v.11). He, too well, understands how to play the game. And, by the end of the exchange, Petruchio has taught Kate how to say what people want to hear. It is in this light that we must examine Kate's great speech. She is demonstrating that she has mastered both of her husband's lessons: tell people what they want to hear; and clothes no more make the man than words make the speech. Thus, Kate says,
Here is the truth in Kate's speech: she has tried being honest and forward. Her words have failed to make an impression. She then makes a telling remark: "That seeming to be most which we are least." This is an acknowledgement of the rules of this society. Seeming is real; real is a lance unable to hit its mark. For the sake of her husband and home, where she can be "secure and safe," Kate will seeming be tamed. She will say what she is expected to say, and think what she wishes to think. Kate now knows that she has found a husband who will never ask her to stop being Kate, only to stop seeming to be Kate. Indeed, when she finishes her speech with a suggestion that she will place her hand beneath her husband's foot, Petruchio does not step on her as he might, and secure the illusion. Instead, he applauds her, exclaiming, "Why, there's a wench! Come on and kiss me, Kate!" (V.ii.185) The others don't understand. Lucentio ends the play with the statement, "Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamèd so." But, we share the joke with Kate and Petruchio: the sun is the moon if we say so. This is the authorial intent which we must apply to 10 Things I Hate About You. Goddard has a wonderful, throw-away line in his essay on Shrew. He is expressing concern for finding just the right actress to play Kate. But then he says, "And as for Bianca, you can pick up a dozen of her in the first high school you happen on, any one of whom could act her to perfection by just being herself." (Goddard 71) Goddard is, unfortunately, dismissing Bianca while failing to see the truth in his own statement. Today, in any high school, you are judged by how you seem. If you don't fit in, you are a pariah. As they strive to develop their own adult identities and deal with their own insecurities, adolescents create a world whose rules are very much the rules of Shakespeare's Padua. They fashion an image and play it to the world. Thus, screenwriters Karen McCullah Lutz and Kristen Smith, transplant The Taming of the Shrew to Padua High School in 1999. There they find very fertile ground in which to plant the seeds of Shakespeare's comedy. Katerina Stratford is a shrew. Actually, Ms. Perky, the guidance counselor, informs Kat that the term most people use when discussing her is "heinous bitch." Her sister, Bianca, is simply too beautiful to be believed, and she immediately captures the attention of the new student at Padua High, Cameron. However, the girls' father, Dr. Stratford, an OB-GYN, will not allow the girls to date. So Cameron, aided by his new friend Michael, sets in motion a plan which parallel's the original. Cameron will pretend to be a French tutor so he can have time alone with Bianca. In the meantime, they will find someone to date Kat, so Cameron can ultimately date Bianca. They find the perfect candidate in Patrick Verona. This Petruchio is also something of a force of nature. Rumor has it that he once ate a live chicken, all but the beak, and that he sold his liver. There is also the possibility that he spent the last year in prison. However, Cameron and Michael have one problem with their plan: Patrick isn't interested. So the two outsiders approach the ultimate insider, Joey Donner, and persuade him to pay Patrick to court Kat. Joey is also interested in Bianca. Apparently, he considers every sweet young thing a personal challenge. So he buys into the plot. Certainly, this adaptation remains true to the basic structure of the original: Kat is a shrew; Bianca is shallow and beautiful; Cameron (Lucentio) and Joey (Hortensio) both want Bianca; and Patrick/Petruchio initially becomes involved in the plan for the money. In addition, they all play roles. Cameron plays French Tutor (Cambio); Joey plays true suitor; Patrick plays at being interested in Kat. There is also an established normative behavior against which everyone is judged. Indeed, Michael makes that the focus of the introductory tour he gives to Cameron, and Bianca is always asking Kat to pretend she is normal. So far, the revival is fairly true to its progenitor. However, there are differences, and some of the differences pose problems for Shakespeare purists. The most significant of these is whether or not Kat is tamed in this film. As Daniel Seltzer has noted, "there can be no question that Shakespeare's audience grasped - really heard - more of the plays than we do, because as art objects they were conceived within patterns of perception and response that Shakespeare and his audiences had in common, and which were of course in many ways quite different from ours." (Seltzer 312) Thus, to assess 10 Things I Hate About You, we must first test it against the understanding of authorial intent I have already presented, and ultimately, against an understanding of the contemporary audience for which the film was made. Does 10 Things I Hate About You push the envelope too far? Or does it legitimately fall within the bounds of the tradition of Shakespeare "revived, with alterations?" (Click on the play button under each description) I have selected ten scenes from the film which address issues of theme and character. A close examination of these scenes demonstrates that 10 Things I Hate About You is, indeed, a successful, and charming, revival - "with alterations" - of The Taming of the Shrew. In this first scene, Kat is in English class. She speaks out against Hemingway, establishing herself as a feminist critic. Joey puts her down and establishes her reputation as a shrew. Even the teacher, Mr. Morgan, shows little tolerance for her opinion. He sends her to the guidance counselor. This is very comparable to I.i.47ff. We are introduced to Kate. She speaks her mind, and is challenged by her father, Hortensio, and Gremio. Kate and Kat are judged both by their peers and by those who are leaders in the community.
When Kat goes to the office to see Ms. Perky, the guidance Like Kate, Kat is the less-loved child. Dr. Stratford is nowhere near
as judgemental and offensive as Baptista, but he still clearly favors
Bianca over Kat.
In the first scene in which we meet Dr. Stratford, he greets Kat
This pattern is repeated in the scene where he deals with the fact
This version of the play offers more justification for Kat's behavior It might seem that Kat's statement contradicts the lesson Shakespeare is intent on having Kate learn. However, the difference is in the audience. In the 16th century, Shakespeare had to take this statement and make it his theme, with a caveat: you don't have to be who they want you to be; you only have to seem who they want you to be. In this way, he subtly questions his own society. However, in the 20th century, the film can be more direct in challenging pretense and prejudice. Further, this film is clearly directed to a younger audience. They have their own language and their own idiom. Indeed, one of the amusing subtexts in the film is the fact that Cameron and Michael occasionally use an actual line from the text of the play, while Dr. Stratford uses contemporary slang to prove to his daughters that he knows what's what. The film, itself, seems to recognize that Shakespeare's language can be an initial obstacle to effective contemporary communication when Patrick tells Michael not to talk to him like that where others can hear, and Dr. Stratford elicits not communication, but a shrug of disgust from his daughters. While it appears that the film rejects Shakespeare's poetry, Kat's friend, Mandella, provides a filmic role model in her passion for Shakespeare and that poetry. It can even be argued that Shakespeare arranges her prom date. Further, the class assignment that elicits Kat's final speech is to write her own version of Shakespeare's Sonnet 141, which Mr. Morgan has read aloud. Had Kat not been inspired by Shakespeare, her "taming" would not have expression. Therefore, while the film avoids using Shakespeare's poetry, it endorses Shakespeare, himself, and subtly encourages the audience to explore him on their own. Thus, a modern text version of Shakespeare is not unlike the first modern dress version of his plays. It is one way to give the play modern social and political relevance.
The political relevance is seen in the shifting balance in the sparring
Patrick, like Petruchio, does recognize in Kat a kindred spirit. He
Indeed, when they are out in the paddleboats, he pointedly asks
And finally, Kat, bringing the film back to Shakespeare's primary
When Joey reveals that he has paid Patrick to date Kat, she is
There are a number of ways to address this. First, since Petruchio and Kate mirror each other in the original, is it wholly inappropriate to reverse the taming and lead the two main characters to a modern relationship of equality? Kat has already admitted her love. In a marriage of equals, Patrick should also make a gesture. A contemporary audience would justifiably have problems with the 16th century solution. Even Garrick adapted the play to reflect the mores of his own time regarding marriage. In this light, 10 Things I Hate About You is consistent with the tradition of adaptation of Shakespeare's plays. It must communicate its themes to a particular audience. Thus, the test of the rightness for this adaptation is whether or not the film remains a vehicle for communicating Shakespeare's themes to this audience. In this regard, the film is quite successful. Kat's affirmation of self within the context of the highly stratified world of a modern high school where you are judged by appearance, by the clothes you wear, and the friends you keep is also an affirmation of Shakespeare's theme condemning appearance and superficiality. This is echoed in the subplot when Cameron, with his genuine and honorable love, wins Bianca away from Joey, who is instantly recognizable as the arbiter of other people's status. In Shakespeare's original, Bianca remains a shrew, providing Kate and Petruchio with their only public success in the play. They will always be the "odd man out" in their world. However, when we hear Patrick tell Cameron not to let anyone tell him he isn't good enough, and when we see Joey lying bleeding on the floor after Bianca decks him, we have reflection and reinforcement of the major theme. The value is not in the clothes, but in the man wearing those clothes. The film also challenges playing at roles. Both Patrick and Kat have to move closer to their real selves and away from their assumed personae in order to cement their relationship. Bianca stops playing the tease, and she even has a delightful scene where she punctures Cameron's role as French tutor, mastering more French than the supposed master. Even Dr. Stratford admits at the end that he has tried to play a role in his daughters' lives, and that Kat has not let him play. He recognizes that the attempt to play was not successful in building their father-daughter relationship and tells her he is proud of her. In each case, the pretense is shattered and an honest expression of self is encouraged. The message is there. Yet, one has to admit that while The Taming of the Shrew is not one of Shakespeare's masterpieces, it is certainly a greater work of art than 10 Things I Hate About You. The poetry and the complexity of the interwoven plot structure create a texture of text and subtext that is lacking in the film. Nevertheless, I like the film. I recommend it to people. Indeed, in my Shakespeare On Film class, I require that my students see it. They compare it to the Burton/Zefferelli production that is more in the tradition of Davenant and his three-act farce. I ask them which best represents the play. I ask them which they enjoyed the most. And I find that my students are enthusiastically reading Shakespeare because they are so enjoying Shakespeare. They have had the authentic experience of him through these productions, and so are more than willing to engage the language and structure of the plays, themselves. Shakespeare wrote his plays to be performed and experienced. Any performance is an act of interpretation and must be evaluated as such. However, any performance is also an act of communication and must also be evaluated in that context. There is a strong thematic and structural relationship between The Taming of the Shrew and 10 Things I Hate About You. There is also a joy and authenticity in the film that make it a valid vehicle of communication for its intended audience. I must admit, I feel a surge of joy when I read Petruchio's final "Come on, and kiss me, Kate!" I feel that same sense of enthusiasm and delight at the end of this film. As an unrepentant proud-minded woman myself, I strongly recommend that you see it in its entirety. And then, please read the play. |
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WORKS CITED
Bloom, Harold. SHAKESPEARE: THE INVENTION OF THE HUMAN. Chambers, E. K. SHAKESPEARE: A SURVEY. New York: Hill and Wang. 1962. Goddard, Harold C. THE MEANING OF SHAKESPEARE. Vol. 1. Chicago: Lutz, Karen Mccullah and Kristen Smith. 10 Things I Hate About You. Seltzer, Daniel. "Shakespeare's Texts and Modern Productions,"
LITERARY Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Shakespeare, William. The Taming of the Shrew. Spencer, Theodore. SHAKESPEARE AND THE NATURE OF MAN, 2nd edition.
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