The Taming of the Shrew - Globe

Make no mistake this production is a mess. There's some interesting ideas and some ridiculous ideas all thrown together to produce an ill-thought through whole.

The Shrew is considered a problematic play these days, but this production layers other problems on top which muddy rather than clarify matters.

Worth saying, however, that the script in hand has nothing to do with the actor (who is one of the best things about the production) not being across her lines, rather it's one of the many directorial conceits. In the prologue, Christopher Sly pulls a seemingly random punter from the audience and makes her take the part of Katherine - complete with script. As both Kate, and the 'audience member' who has been forced into playing Kate, gain confidence she refers to the script less often (and occasionally steps out of the Kate character to make asides as the 'actor' - confusing - you bet). What is clear is that Thalissa Teixeira is completely on top of the text and is using the script as a prop and not an aide-memoire, she couldn't do all the extra stuff she's expected to do without being word perfect.

I don't remember seeing the word "putrid" in a theatre review before. (Time Out)

I think that was the first Shakespeare production I ever saw when I was in my early teens, and has stayed with me to this day.  From what I can remember it began with Jonathan Pryce (as Sly) dressed in contemporary clothes having a drunken rant in the auditorium then jumping on stage and completely destroying a very attractive typical Italian set and leaving just the backstage scaffolding.  He then collapsed on stage.  The rest of the play was framed as Sly's dream/nightmare - with Sly/Pryce taking the role of Petruchio, in modern dress on that almost bare stage.  A truly great production directly by Michael Bogdanov (although I had very little to compare it to those days).

I read an interview with Pryce several years later in which he said that on several occasions audience members urged ushers to call the police to have the drunken man removed.  Thank goodness it was in the days before mobile phones (yes- there was such a time).

Beyond that moment of getting someone from the audience - there are very few similarities between the two productions!

In the case of the Globe the apparent audience member is one of the cast but this is far from obvious even she lost her temper with Sly. I’m told that a member of stage management stands close by in case of undue reaction from other audience members. The brilliant opening of the play made what followed even more disappointing. 

I was one of them. Thalissa Teixeira could be a strong Katherina but she is wasted in this mess. Still have no idea what the puppets add (commentary on coercive control, according to the reviews) or the teddy bear. Thalissa was no longer script in hand for act one, so maybe this was a directorial choice that was quietly dropped? The good news is that the gold boots and police uniforms used in R&J and Richard III have been retired. Honestly, I am not booking anything else at the Globe for a while.

Indeed, genuine anxiety in audience. 

This was the worst Shrew / play I’ve ever seen.
I was laughing with embarrassment. Bizarre. Held off reading reviews and …Honestly the director - I would never trust seeing their future work after this car crash.

Was it busy? With the reviews and the weather?

Are you going to brave it?

@talisman - absolutely, the Irish production was stunning. We had the cover Katherina as well; very hard hitting.

In an earlier production it was treated as expected until the argument about the sun and moon. At that point they both burst out laughing and continued to send each other up. The last part they continued to humorously mock each other and finally swept out triumphantly through groundlings and remaining characters watched them open mouthed. It got round the problems in an original way. Both this and the Irish one were equally successful on my view but so very different.

Yes
Samantha Spiro