Posted in : Audio Dramas , Review , TV| Tagged : shakespeare , Shrew!,The Taming of the Shrew
SHREW ! is Amy Freed ’s feminist rewrite of Shakespeare ’s The Taming of the Shrew that recreates the bawdy , all-embracing humor without the misogyny .
Audio drama podcasts are still a Wild West with untapped potential , andSHREW!is the latest swing in trying something unlike : a feminist rewriting of Shakespeare ’s most sexist play . That play isThe Taming of the Shrew , a comedy about how a domineering serviceman " tames ' his new fiery and badly - temper wife into becoming an obedient and submissive wife by , well , abuse and torturing her like deprive her of solid food and water until she submits to his will , and then brainwash her into scolding her sisters into being servile wives as well . There ’s no deny the intimate politics of the play despite many apologists over the decades trying to fight back it as " ironic commentary . " The rare attempt with some feminist meter reading just ca n’t get past the text itself . Prolific playwrightAmy Freedcertainly thought that and decided to rewrite it , henceSHREW !
SHREW!purports to severalize the " straight " tale of The Taming of the Shrew . It begins with pothouse landlady Mistress Slapbottom ( Tessa Auberjonois ) elucidate the joint of all its rowdy reveler , will her alone with her visit from an old friend : an unnamed female dramatist ( Susannah Rogers ) who has to disguise herself as a military personnel to reply her calling as a writer . Said writer is rather pissed off about being tasked with ghostwriting a sexist play about the taming of a shrew for a plug playwright who could n’t crack it himself by his deadline . In the privacy of the pothouse , she begins a Thomas Nelson Page one rewrite to hold herself and her champion . reference the original manoeuvre ’s framing successiveness , the action at law teddy to the rewritten play .
Here the " shrew " of the play , Katherine , is now a woman who love get a line and can not tolerate being cooped up by the men who endeavor to control her ( which was really the original dramatic play , only this time she ’s the paladin instead , the antagonist ) . As in the originalShrew , it start with gentlemen Lucentio and Tranio , who are visiting Padua . Strolling through the university , Lucentio is right away afflict by Katherine ’s babe , Bianca , an airhead who loves being in a man ’s world . He conspires with Tranio to disguise himself as a private instructor and get close to Bianca by pretend to give her moral . Meanwhile , Petruchio arrives in town with his trusty servant , Grumio , to visit his friends . They are greeted by Petruchio ’s one-time brother , Hortensio , and thing sound off off , but not the path the originalShrewgoes .
Shakespeare as audio play is not a new thing . BBC Radio does it all the time and you may find recent American productions all over Audible with well - known TV and film actors in the mold . SHREW!is a stroke at doing something old and unexampled at the same time . It ’s full of raucous two-fold entendres and bold , broad performance intended to play to the rafters . The actors double up in other roles . Perhaps Shakespeare is a recession amongst Americans , but this is as good a Shakespeare explainer of how a antecedently set up news report can be changed with just a different perspective .
SHREW!is usable onApple Podcasts , Spotify , Stitcher , and all major podcast chopine
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