Taming Of The Shrew 2.1: First Meeting

Kat Agudo joins us to talk about Taming of the Shrew and finding value in a difficult text. You can find Kat at https://www.katagudo.com, and check out Patriettes this Saturday, February 6th.

Transcript: https://leevineyard.wordpress.com/2021/02/03/transcript-taming-act-2-scene-1/

Transcript

(Kat as) PETRUCHIO

I will attend her here,

And woo her with some spirit when she comes.

Say that she rail; why then I’ll tell her plain

She sings as sweetly as a nightingale:

Say that she frown, I’ll say she looks as clear

As morning roses newly wash’d with dew:

Say she be mute and will not speak a word;

Then I’ll commend her volubility,

And say she uttereth piercing eloquence:

If she do bid me pack, I’ll give her thanks,

As though she bid me stay by her a week:

If she deny to wed, I’ll crave the day

When I shall ask the banns and when be married.

But here she comes; and now, Petruchio, speak.

Enter KATHARINA

Good morrow, Kate; for that’s your name, I hear.

(Lee as) KATHARINA

Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing:

They call me Katharina that do talk of me.

PETRUCHIO

You lie, in faith; for you are call’d plain Kate,

And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;

But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom

Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,

For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,

Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;

Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,

Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,

Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,

Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.

KATHARINA

Moved! in good time: let him that moved you hither

Remove you hence: I knew you at the first

You were a moveable.

PETRUCHIO

Why, what’s a moveable?

KATHARINA

A join’d-stool.

PETRUCHIO

Thou hast hit it: come, sit on me.

KATHARINA

Asses are made to bear, and so are you.

PETRUCHIO

Women are made to bear, and so are you.

KATHARINA

No such jade as you, if me you mean.

PETRUCHIO

Alas! good Kate, I will not burden thee;

For, knowing thee to be but young and light–

KATHARINA

Too light for such a swain as you to catch;

And yet as heavy as my weight should be.

PETRUCHIO

Should be! should–buzz!

KATHARINA

Well ta’en, and like a buzzard.

PETRUCHIO

O slow-wing’d turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?

KATHARINA

Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.

PETRUCHIO

Come, come, you wasp; i’ faith, you are too angry.

KATHARINA

If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

PETRUCHIO

My remedy is then, to pluck it out.

KATHARINA

Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies,

PETRUCHIO

Who knows not where a wasp does

wear his sting? In his tail.

KATHARINA

In his tongue.

PETRUCHIO

Whose tongue?

KATHARINA

Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.

PETRUCHIO

What, with my tongue in your tail? nay, come again,

Good Kate; I am a gentleman.

KATHARINA

That I’ll try.

Slapping sound

PETRUCHIO

I swear I’ll cuff you, if you strike again.

KATHARINA

So may you lose your arms:

If you strike me, you are no gentleman;

And if no gentleman, why then no arms.

PETRUCHIO

A herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books!

KATHARINA

What is your crest? a coxcomb?

PETRUCHIO

A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.

KATHARINA

No cock of mine; you crow too like a craven.

PETRUCHIO

Nay, come, Kate, come; you must not look so sour.

KATHARINA

It is my fashion, when I see a crab.

PETRUCHIO

Why, here’s no crab; and therefore look not sour.

KATHARINA

There is, there is.

PETRUCHIO

Then show it me.

KATHARINA

Had I a glass, I would.

PETRUCHIO

What, you mean my face?

KATHARINA

Well aim’d of such a young one.

PETRUCHIO

Now, by Saint George, I am too young for you.

KATHARINA

Yet you are wither’d.

PETRUCHIO

‘Tis with cares.

KATHARINA

I care not.

PETRUCHIO

Nay, hear you, Kate: in sooth you scape not so.

KATHARINA

I chafe you, if I tarry: let me go.

PETRUCHIO

No, not a whit: I find you passing gentle.

‘Twas told me you were rough and coy and sullen,

And now I find report a very liar;

For thou are pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,

But slow in speech, yet sweet as spring-time flowers:

Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,

Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,

Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk,

But thou with mildness entertain’st thy wooers,

With gentle conference, soft and affable.

Why does the world report that Kate doth limp?

O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig

Is straight and slender and as brown in hue

As hazel nuts and sweeter than the kernels.

O, let me see thee walk: thou dost not halt.

KATHARINA

Go, fool, and whom thou keep’st command.

PETRUCHIO

Did ever Dian so become a grove

As Kate this chamber with her princely gait?

O, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate;

And then let Kate be chaste and Dian sportful!

KATHARINA

Where did you study all this goodly speech?

PETRUCHIO

It is extempore, from my mother-wit.

KATHARINA

A witty mother! witless else her son.

PETRUCHIO

Am I not wise?

KATHARINA

Yes; keep you warm.

PETRUCHIO

Marry, so I mean, sweet Katharina, in thy bed:

And therefore, setting all this chat aside,

Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented

That you shall be my wife; your dowry ‘greed on;

And, Will you, nill you, I will marry you.

Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn;

For, by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,

Thy beauty, that doth make me like thee well,

Thou must be married to no man but me;

For I am he am born to tame you Kate,

And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate

Conformable as other household Kates.

Here comes your father: never make denial;

I must and will have Katharina to my wife.

End scene music

Lee: Hello listeners, welcome to Scenic Review. That was act 2, scene 1 of Taming of the Shrew. My name is Lee Vineyard. You just heard me reading as Katerina. Joining us today is Kat Agudo as Petruchio. They are a non-binary, queer playwright with a bachelor of arts from UT in anthropology and English literature, and they are one semester away from graduating from the Actors Studio Drama School in New York City with an emphasis on play writing and acting. Hi Kat, how are you?

Kat: Hello. Hi. It’s so nice to be here, lovely we can be duffeses and talk about Taming of the Shrew. 

Lee: Thank you for joining me on this Sunday afternoon to be duffeses. 

So this scene is the first meeting of these 2 characters. What do you think are the things you absolutely have to do in this scene to make the play successful?

Kat: You can’t play Petruchio as a serious Santa. Or. (I know, this is a term that my family uses, being a serious Santa.) You have to be at least a little bit playful for this to work. If you deliver Petruchio as a non playful dirt bag who is egotistical, you know, you’re gonna have a very unpleasant experience watching this play. Because he’s gonna be an over controlling jerk that will have the potential to be abusive towards women, and violent, and things like that, you know. 

Lee: I think that is pretty textual though. He does do things in the text explicitly that I would say are abusive.

Kat: Oh for sure. But for the audience to take a little… And we have to make sure to keep saying that we are talking about this in terms of the modern audience rather than back then, because obviously it would be more acceptable back then to talk about “this is how you discipline your women” and that’s just a normal, you know, everyone understands. But in terms of the modern audience wanting to enjoy this play and believe in the comedic rom com quality.

Lee: The scene that we chose to do today I think is one of the best parts of this play in my opinion. I think my favorite parts are the induction scene and then this little back and forth bit. 

Kat: Yeah. This this scene is just so important in showing off the chemistry. I feel like it’s easier for us is the audience to root for them the more that we encounter and see that they are at each other’s intelligence and on the same level. In terms of kind of wordplay, Petruchio’s playfulness and her kind of, you know, not being afraid to hit back when he hits her with a line of melifluous diologue to butter her up. 

That’s what makes it so funny. You have the imaginative, immature child along with this very reserved, intense energy. That, it’s like two opposing Pokemon going against each other and you want to see at the end who wins. 

Lee: You get a lot of Shakespeare plays where it’s like, it works better in the original cultural context. Honestly I feel like this dynamic works better in a modern cultural context. Because if you look at it factually in the context of the play, Kate actually doesn’t have any literal hard power there. She can be forced to marry him and she is. But in a modern context when that’s removed then this dynamic, I think you can enjoy the really compelling parts of it and actually not knowing who’s going to win, you know?

Kat: Yeah. Once you take it into a modern context it’s less sad, and it’s less about the confines of her as a woman and it’s more about stubbornness and internal struggle and peer pressure. One of my favorite adaptations is obviously going to be the 10 Things I Hate About You movie with Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles. I think that did a really great job at adapting it towards a modern audience but still keeping the whole very high school-y drama. “I’m gonna ask her out,” “bro you can’t you know she’s going to say no to everybody,” Which is just so easily a romantic comedy formula that is used over and over again. There’s a reason why this play stands the test of time.

 Part of the reason why, I guess, I find it so compelling is that it’s so obnoxiously in your face that in a way it’s kind of a parity in of itself. 

Lee: It’s certainly presented that way.

Kat: Especially with the induction.

Lee (recorded later): Listeners, the “induction scene” refers to the first scene of the play, in which a group of people convince a drunk man called Christofer Sly that he’s actually a gentleman with a whole life that he doesn’t remember. A group of traveling players put on a play for him, framing the rest of the narrative as a play within the play.

Kat: It kind of lessens the slap in the face to make it– To help the audience feel like they shouldn’t take it at face value. Because they don’t have to encountered or experienced it with just a single layer of the fourth wall separating them from the action or reality. I feel like there’s 2 thresholds to kind of protect the psyche from the audience point of view to be like okay, maybe this isn’t a clearly sexist, horrible romp that we are enduring for for the next 2.5 to 3:00 hours. It’s like, I like to see it more as fable. 

Because the more that you look at it in that kind of satirical lens,he more I feel like you’re able to accept and explore further into, you know, the purpose of why these characters exist in this kind of way. 

Talking about the way that the scene is sandwiched, much like the play is sandwiched by the induction and Christopher sly. Because in the beginning he’s talking about, “if she does this then I will do this,” and then he she comes in they have the conversation, and he ends with telling her the truth. Which is, you know, something that was not specified in the beginning before she comes into the room. All he says is “okay I’m gonna be prepared to say this, and if she tells me to pack up and go then I will act as if, you know, I’ve I’ve stayed with her for quite a long time.” 

But in the end he says setting all this chatter side that’s in plain terms. There’s no more mellifluous flowery words that can act as a buffer to this conversation, to the end of this conversation. He’s telling her what the arrangement has been. You know, rather than masquerading it as some kind of ridiculous long ended, going no where moo fest. 

You have to knock both of these people off their own pedestals in order to really understand why these people are actually good for each other. I’m a firm believer that. I don’t know, when I like to see a play, my favorite thing is completely flawed people, broken down but somehow find their way towards each other. 

And even though the plot serves that you know he’s eventually going to quote unquote “tame” her, I feel like Kate has to choose. Kate still have the agency to choose whether she will be tamed or not. And I love that the play kind of turns it in on itself. Because at the end it’s not her that’s been completely contained in my interpretation. I think that by the end of the play, both Kate and Patricio reach an understanding of each other and their roles that they need to play in this imagining of society to survive, and to keep a good relationship with their families, and with the rest of the town you know. It’s more of an equal unit where they have to have these team like structures in place for them to be happy. Because if it didn’t happen and they were just both really stubborn asses to each other, then there would be no play.

 You compare this scene to the wooing scene and Henry 5. And it’s still. This woman is in a very vulnerable position where she where English is not her first language, and she just kind of has to go with it. Where as you have this scene where you have Kate standing on her own, striking him, putting him down even after he says “Hey just saying, you will marry me.” She has that time to protest.

Lee: Yeah it is interesting that difference and the ability to speak. And you know because it is a play, it’s a speaking medium, that ability to express yourself like that gives her a lot more narrative power, if not more power in the context of if she were a real person. 

Kat: There’s the part where Kate strikes him. And the way that his line is delivered right after that can either be a yea or a nay to the audience. If you have an actor say, genuinely and with upmost seriousness, “I swear I’ll cut you if you strike again.” That kind of awakens the flashing red lights of danger. People are scared of what will come from this point onward. So if you do approach it very serious it’s going to be hard to dig yourself out of that hole, because you’re still only in act 2 scene one. 

It’ll make you so– because you’re visualizing yourself as part of this story, but we’re trying our best to see ourselves in whatever arts and media that we areexperiencing in the moment. And if people put themselves in Kate’s shoes along with the line that Petruchio says, “I swear I’ll cuff you if you strike again,” obviously people are gonna be sitting on eggshells wondering if this is even worth the whole travel through the narrative. Because if if it’s gonna end bad, if it’s going to be predictable, then peace out. Why are we even– what’s the point of this, you know?

If you take it as a more playful all kind of whiny kindergartner saying “I swear I’ll cuff you if you strike again,” then it’s easier to stomach, you know, or if you do the half assed passiveness, it’ll still hit when she responds to her next line. Even though these lines are so quip versus quip, there’s so many varied ways you can display the beginnings of their relationship and what their relationship will be just by different emphasis in each of the lines.

Lee: We might be getting more into the areas where we disagree in more of this conversation coming up.

Kat: Okay,yes. I’m open, let’s talk. 

Lee: One of the themes that I hadn’t noticed as much before but picked up more on this reading, especially because I was thinking about the meta theatricality of the play, about how the whole play is framed as a play within a play. And we sort of have this moment where Petruchio’s framing this first meeting and how he’s going to act in it and this performance that he’s putting on for Kate in some ways. I was also picking up, gas lighting is a pretty significant theme or pattern in this play. This is a thing that Petruchio does to Kate a lot where he will just contradict her perception of reality, or just straight up reality like later when he’s like the sun is the moon and the moon is the sun. But it feels like there’s a parallel to that too. The the lies that you’re experiencing when you’re seeing a piece of theater as well, and the lies that are being told to Christopher Sly. Lies seem to be kind of prominent in this play.

Kat: Yeah no, I completely agree. I don’t know if we’re gonna, like you predicted, divert and ways of thinking. But I completely agree that gas lighting and lies are a huge part of it, but that makes you so much more compelled as the audience member to try and find the truth. Because both Petruchio and Kate are forced by who they are as people to pretend to be a certain way. And the only way for them to be genuine is if they’re alone and they don’t have to deal with the pressures of everyone else labeling them. Because I feel like we’re playing at the sort of comedia del arte troops in this play in order to make a successful romantic comedy, you know, with these two romantic leads. 

All she’s dealt with is, in her family unit, no mother. A sister who casts a large shadow over her, even as the big sister. A father who is more than happy to get her married off so he won’t have to deal with her anymore. So it’s a lot of her being kept in her own avenue for her own family. And even more so from the rest of the town, because she has this kind of quote unquote “tarnished reputation” in terms of what a good wife or a good woman should be. Also I think that Bianca is a spoiled brat. I feel like she orchestrated a lot of things in order for her to get her happy ending but, you know. 

Lee: You want to talk more about Bianca? 

Kat: Let’s talk about Bianca. Yes, so for listeners who don’t know, I played Bianca in the summer 2014 version of the taming of the shrew at Shakespeare at Winedale and it was an interesting journey. I think that Bianca is able to manipulate people so much easier, because she can feign being innocent, she can feign not knowing a lot of things because of the way that she is seen as the younger sister as needing to be coddled more, as being the perfect daughter. Because she does eventually get her way. You know. I mean it was the rule that if her older sister didn’t get married, then she would get married. She wouldn’t be able to, you know, make that dream come true. And she– and it’s very apparent towards the end that she becomes this piece of work because she is in a way very selfish. I would even argue that, if we’re positing Kate as the protagonist that we love, then it wouldn’t be too Petruchi who is the villain (quote unquote villain). I think that it’s her younger sister. Because you need to know that the younger sister is also the one who is able to spill some tea and spread those rumors about the monster that her sister is to other people because she is more integrated into society. Rather than Kate, who wants to, you know, go along to the beat of her own drum. 

Lee: It’s interesting to compare this to characters like Beatrice or Rosaline who are similarly strong willed and have banter-y romances, but they have more positive relationships with the other women in the plays. It’s kind of sad for Kate that she didn’t get to have an ally in her sister.

Kat: She doesn’t have– and there’s no mother in this family dynamic. Which is just not explained.

Lee: As it so often isn’t. 

Kat: As it so often isn’t! I’m not saying this is kind of like a Disney where’s the mom situation, but it might be. And I’m more I’m more than happy to say that Bianca is the evil sister, evil jealous sister. Because I mean, thinking about the Beatrice, you know, at least there’s Hero. There’s Celia, there’s the rest of the ladies for Love’s Labour’s Lost for that Rosaline. Thinking about Love’s Labour’s Lost, the whole “Did not I dance with you at Brabent once?” 

Lee: I love that bit. 

Kat: Such good bits. But for this scene in particular. It’s almost really ironic given the title, because this is not the way to tame a shrew. By having aconversation like this that you ultimately lose. Because they don’t change. Kate doesn’t undergo change during this part. In my opinion, I think that she is amused and I think that she is curious, but I don’t think she undergoes the most change over the course of the scene. I think it’s for Petruchio who does. Because he didn’t have to tell her what was going on. He didn’t have to say ‘now I will talk plain and this is what’s going on.’ He could can shroud her with more lies and be like, big man on campus. 

Lee: I think that can definitely be played as that kind of honesty. It feels like it could also be played as kind of a threat. 

Kat: Yeah. Which is why I think that in order to dissuade audiences from leaving the theater– modern audiences specifically– from leaving the theater, you have to play it genuine and you need to play it a little soft. Because otherwise it’s going to seem easily like, why should we even wait until the end of the play to see if they end up together, because we don’t want her to be with him. Because again as the audience we are siding with our protagonist and if the protagonist if the protagonist is Kate, even though she is stubborn and all of these other things , we have to protect them in a way. Which is so weird. 

Lee: Why do you think the audience shouldn’t leave the theater? What do you think is– what is it about this play that you think makes it valuable and exciting? 

Kat: Aside from intonations and actors interpretation of how they project it? 

Lee: Or why this play as a canvas for those actors to work with. 

Kat: It’s really difficult. Because there are so many ways that if the line is said a wrong way things will go completely awry and the whole play within a play feeling will break down internally. And people will not have a good time. And also like I mean as a writer and as a theater goer I don’t believe that you always need to have a “good time TM trademark” in the theater, because I’m always one who. I love dark comedies, I love comedies that showcase a really ugly ugly truth. And I feel like this play is about– not Kate being an ugly truth, but that society as a whole is an ugly truth due to the aforementioned gender dynamics, and the way that people should behave is an ugly truth. And how an individual must make their way through that kind of maze is the most compelling thing. 

Lee: Was there anything else you wanted to say about Taming?

Kat: I would encourage productions to be more thoughtful and playful towards it. I wish more productions did the induction. I don’t think they do that enough. I feel like that adds a whole other layer of reading into this fiction fictionalized, you know?

Lee: Double fiction.

Kat: Yeah! Because again, I feel like it’s just so important to reiterate that this is a play within a play within a play. Because these are not real people, these are caricatures of people. I want to go back to commedia dell’arte to make that kind of connection. These are caricatures of people, these are not real people. It’s such a complicated thing and I think that’s why — becuase if it was a very straightforward thing, there would be no controversy, no desire to talk about it. In a way this play does stray from romantic comedy formula in that at the end it seems very bitter sweet mostly because of that ending speech. But you have to leave it up to that production in order to project the desired equal ending. 

Lee: Do you read that final speech Kate has at the end of sort of ironic, or what do you think is going on in that speech, then, in this context?

Kat: The final speech in the play. I feel like he has shown her all of his cards, all of the different faces he can be in front of other people. You can be the obnoxious young boy, he can be the taming man with all this bravado. But now it’s her time to shine, and see if she can sneak by without the horrible, horrible labels that have been put upon her in the past. I don’t think that it’s a huge– there’s a production, I forget which production it is where she delivered the entire speech, and she gave the most obnoxious wink at the end. Do you know that production I’m talking about? It was actually 1929, after the speech of obedience she gave a naughty a wink to the camera, so this was Sam Taylor’s Hollywood film of 1929. I don’t think it’s like that. There’s a balance that you can take when delivering that speech, but what matters more is not letting the audience know that you’re playing this game. I think that should be up to interpretation. I think the wink is derivative in that it’s making the audience feel like they’re so dumb that they can’t see that this is a play on satyrization of gender dynamics.

Lee: So you want there to be ambiguity?

Kat: I like I like the ambiguity. But at the same time I want Kate to be confident in choosing this. Because in a world where where she doesn’t care about what other people think of her, and is stubborn, and would not want to marry at all, she could just easily ran away, banished herself 

Lee: Easily might be putting it a little strongly

Kat: Easily might be putting it really lightly

Lee: But yeah, it was– it was possible.

Kat: It was possible. You have to find a balance you have to spend those plates at the same time so that they so that they don’t fall. 

Lee: So Kat, do you have any upcoming projects we can point people towards?

Kat: Yeah. So as you guys know, I am graduating this next upcoming semester at the Actors Studio Drama School and I have a full length reading of the play I wrote called Patriettes. It follows the story of the women of the American revolution. And it is a time travelling piece towards sexual assault and the Brock Turner case on university campuses. I’m excited I hope I get to graduate. 

Lee: Amazing. I’ll put links in… whatever place I put links. I’ll figure it out. Then all that’s left is to say curtains. 

Kat: Curtains!

Lee: Goodbye audience.