It's the title, 10 Things I Hate About Taming Of The Shrew, that caught my attention. One of William Shakespeare's plays being openly and obviously hated and decried. But why? I was curious to find out.
Gillian English is a comedienne and actress originally from Nova Scotia in Canada, but lives now in Tasmania (Australia), and is angry; very angry indeed. And in her 75 minute rant, she bombarded us with her rationale.
English is a modern-style feminist; by this I mean that she seems totally incapable of taking Shakespeare's play both on face value (as a comedy), and relating it to the era and conditions of its writing. Instead, she puts modern values and modern thinking to the text, making it seem hugely misogynistic, irrelevant, condoning physical violence and subjegation of women, and basically she hates it simply because it is not contemporary!
Euston, we have a problem! If this is how she feels about it, then simply just don't go and watch a production of it and move on! Very similar charges could be laid at the feet of almost any work of literature that was written prior to the #metoo campaign!
Further, her 10 reasons aren't actually particularly valid either when put under scutiny. And there's a lot of repetition in her routine about being against rape and hating men! [The Musical version of The Taming Of The Shrew, Kiss Me Kate, composed ny American, Cole Porter has one of the songs sung by 'heroine' Kate titled, 'I Hate Men' - surely that's sufficient evidence that English's theories are just personal grudges?] However...
Her ranting, and her anger make her talk extremely quickly, garble her delivery, and make it very 'personal' to / for her. It's almost as if this tirade is some kind of therapy for her. Moreover, quite ironically English's English is not very intelligible. At least not in British English terms. She mixes Australian dialect and phrasiology with Canadian dialect and phrasiology, and unless you are very quick and understand such terms, there is a lot of what she says lost in (lack of) translation.
To further compound the issue, she is very, yes, very vulgar. Her routine contains some words and images which are most unsavoury and quite frankly, unfunny. Her references and analogies being taken from modern films and TV programmes, many of which which unfamiliar to me (and some to the rest of the audience too).
I went hoping for an intelligent and rational 'debate' on the merits of one of Shakespeare's more durable romantic comedies; I received a long-winded, non-stop, full throttle verbal assault from a lady who, despite the premise being comedic, failed to inject any humour into the routine. Coming home I sat down and thought about what I had experienced, wondering if perhaps, that because I was a white, middle-class, middle-aged man, I was not supposed to 'get' her... however, I dismissed this thought on two grounds: 1) the show should be open to, available to and understandable by all people of all ages (18+), and 2) During the whole 75 minutes of her rant, no-one in the audience really laughed at all. A couple of titters, a couple of smirks, and maybe a grin, but that was it, from the whole audience, the entire time; so no, it wasn't just me.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 28/7/19
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