Last night I went to see the Taming of the Shrew at the Sydney Opera House. I was fortunate enough to be invited to the opening night a couple of weeks ago, but my flatmate/best friend wanted me to see it with her. To be honest I actually enjoyed last night more than the opening night. Don't mistake me, I thought they were both great and enjoyed them both, but last nights performance seemed to have more energy and enthusiasm.
It's quite an interesting production, the cast is all female, which I believe is a first for a Shakespeare production. It's a good juxtaposition, given that in Shakespeare's time, of course, the cast were always men, playing female roles. It's quite a nice switch. Most of the time the production follows a fairly straight forward pattern, but there is a section where the characters are all female and quite feminine at that. It's an interesting plot device. I haven't quite decided upon the meaning of this yet, but I do like it. It did give an interesting feel to the performance. The play itself is actually quite sexist, what with Katerina being made to subjugate herself entirely to her husband, to the point where she is calling the sun the moon and the day the night. But in this performance, I got the feeling that she was doing it very tongue in cheek. It seemed almost as though there was a game going on between them, like he knew that she wasn't really totally cowed, just going with it. But I couldn't decide if that was the point, that it was ok is she was lying and he knew it, so long as it wasn't out in the open, so long as he looked like he tamed her.
But despite its inherent sexism, I still enjoyed it.
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