The Taming of the Shrew - Globe

[Phantom of London]

Jun 18, 2024 14:30:14 GMT aspieandy said:

They certainly believe they do righteous work at the Globe - the LGBTQetc and Woke themes, for example - but it's difficult to not think they are so lost in that commitment the (Shakespearean) platform.becomes misshapen, and ultimately undermined.

Okay we have debated LGBTQetc and Woke themes on here ad nauseam, however I know believe that the Globe use that as a smokescreen to make poor casting choices across the board, that is a metaphor for cheap and generally just out of acting school.

Michelle Terry has done nothing wrong, she just appears in one production per year, she is a fine actor, Michelle, doesn’t make any artistic decisions, these seem to be executed by the board.

Tourists and natives are alike and go to the Globe for one reason only - to see great Shakespeare, that should be the Globes calling card, unfortunately that has taken a back seat now.

[princeton]

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.

[ThereWillBeSun]

Jun 19, 2024 11:18:59 GMT ladidah said:

The telegraph review is hysterical, this production sounds truly deranged.

Deliberately not reading - as seeing this soon. (But so tempted to peruse!)

[n1david]

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

[lynette]

Jun 19, 2024 12:48:14 GMT princeton said:

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.

Sounds quite interesting. Reminds me of the production at the RSC back in the dark ages when Sly pulled down the entire set at the start and the good burghers of Stratford didn’t know what was going on. Best production I’ve seen of this play. 😂

[princeton]

Jun 19, 2024 19:32:02 GMT lynette said:

Reminds me of the production at the RSC back in the dark ages when Sly pulled down the entire set at the start and the good burghers of Stratford didn’t know what was going on. Best production I’ve seen of this play. 😂

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!

[ladidah]

That is such a risk, picking some random person out of the audience.

[Talisman]

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. 

[ladidah]

Seeing a few posts on referencing that a lot of people are leaving at the interval for this production.

[happysooz2]

Jun 24, 2024 11:17:36 GMT ladidah said:

Seeing a few posts on referencing that a lot of people are leaving at the interval for this production.

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.

[Talisman]

Richard III not holding audiences either
Sales don't seem to be outstanding for either play.

[lynette]

Jun 19, 2024 22:47:03 GMT princeton said:

Jun 19, 2024 19:32:02 GMT lynette said:

Reminds me of the production at the RSC back in the dark ages when Sly pulled down the entire set at the start and the good burghers of Stratford didn’t know what was going on. Best production I’ve seen of this play. 😂

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!

Indeed, genuine anxiety in audience. 

[ladidah]

It doesn't help that a good seated ticket is about £60-70.

[ThereWillBeSun]

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.

[helenfrombath]

My instinct was to turn around and leave as soon as we saw the giant teddy bear when we walked in, but we stayed, we regretted staying.

[ladidah]

Was it busy? With the reviews and the weather?

[Talisman]

This is the fourth production I have seen at Globe; all very different and very good in their own ways. I couldn’t get on with this at all. I know it quite well but the effort of following this.muddle was too much. I feel so sorry for the actors in having to carry this through.
A high proportion of the audience don’t know what to expect and it is so sad that for many that this could be their first performance of Shakespeare. It is far from easy if one is unaware of the plot.

I noticed that the reactions of the audience were generally to physical comedy rather the text They were very unresponsive to the tutors scenes which ought to be funny.

Some find this play difficult to take with more modern attitudes. The Irish production a few years ago tackled this head on. In this production it is hard to care about any one.

[Talisman]

Jul 9, 2024 12:55:56 GMT ladidah said:

Was it busy? With the reviews and the weather?

Are you going to brave it?

[ladidah]

Nah, not that brave.

[ThereWillBeSun]

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

[Talisman]

Jul 9, 2024 18:25:53 GMT Talisman said:

Jul 9, 2024 18:19:10 GMT ThereWillBeSun said:

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

[Talisman]

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.

[ThereWillBeSun]

@talisman - I can’t remember if that was the Samantha Spiro version or the one which went on tour around the UK. But exactly my sentiments!

[Talisman]

Jul 9, 2024 19:38:38 GMT ThereWillBeSun said:

@talisman - I can’t remember if that was the Samantha Spiro version or the one which went on tour around the UK. But exactly my sentiments!

Yes
Samantha Spiro

[Phantom of London]

So no separate thread for Richard III, I wonder why?

So a baking hot day and this should have been an easy sell out, it was probably 2/3 full going down to 1/2 after the interval. You don’t go to the great Globe for great Shakespeare, it is a mere tourist attraction now.

So the show begins yet again with the now seeming ubiquitous message, that a member of cast is performing with script in hand, here we go again! Anyway the Globe surpasses itself again with another awful, muddled and strange production, which giving this 1 star, is verging on the generous side. The Globe makes strange artistic choices yet again, so is the fault with myself and not being sufficiently enlightened? Well let me say that Tracey Ann Oberman’s Merchant is as good as it gets in theatre, there is not enough superlatives to describe that show.

1 star.