The Taming of the Shrew Part 2 - The Characters

Part 2 begins by exploring the Katherine-Petruchio relationship in greater depth, examining the most positive and the most negative possible interpretations of it and the different ways of understanding the “taming” plot. It goes on to discuss how Shakespeare’s first audiences might have reacted to the play (and why they might not have reacted in the way we expect), and how modern productions stage, adapt, and re-imagine the story, deploying the interpretive freedom that, in Professor Smith’s view, “really is Shakesepare.”