The tamer tamed

Jasper Britton in Taming of the Shrew
10 April 2012

Recently, more than 2,000 women in Cameroon went on a sex strike to prompt their husbands to take action over a longrunning agricultural dispute.

John Fletcher would have been amused: his play, written as a sequel to Shakespeare's The Taming Of The Shrew (and paired with it in this RSC double bill) has a similar premise.

Following the death of his wife Kate, whom he had tortured into marital submission in Shakespeare's troubling original, Petruchio has married again.

His new wife Maria, however, is determined to give Petruchio a taste of the medicine he dished out to Kate, and immediately withholds sexual favours, inspiring the women of the town to do a similar thing.

Fletcher's play is both better and worse than Shakespeare's: far more palatable; less well written.

Director Gregory Doran uses the same excellent cast as he does for The Shrew (with Alexandra Gilbreath playing Maria), but runs up against that first production, ironically by virtue of the intelligence he brought to it.

The play has little of the psychological depth and emotional intensity Doran discovered in the Shrew, sticking instead to vigorous - and lewd - slapstick.

Yet, as prototype feminist theatre, it is a genuine revelation, and its virtues more than compensate for its failings.

In rep until Mar 6 (next perf Sat), Queen's Theatre, 52 Shaftesbury Avenue W1, Wed
7.30pm, Sat mats 2.30pm, £15 to £40. Tel: 020 7494 5040.
Tube: Piccadilly Circus

The Taming Of The Shrew
Richmond Theatre
The Little Green, TW9 1QJ

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