Theater Day

[tanarill]

So today was mostly driving from Rochester in New York to Niagara, where we stopped for lunch and then crossed over. Oh, and went fall-viewing, but we did our Serious Niagara Trip a few years ago and have Maid of the Mist photos and everything, so we just stopped on the observation deck and watched for a bit.

Then we entered Canadia, our friendly and better-governed neighbors to the North. Stratford is remarkably hard to find for a town so well known for putting on plays.

And then we saw Taming of the Shrew, which is okay if you think that people ought to rule over their spouses and use traumatic hypnotism to force them into obedience. But it gave me thinky thoughts, since Katty was such an amazing bitch. I aspire to one day be that bitchy, and that snippy.

So. Here's a bit. Tell me if it needs to finished.

Title: Maru-Raba
Fandom: Taming of the Shrew
Rating: G
Warnings: Snipyness


I.

The problem with Katharina, at least from everyone else's point of view, was that she was a mean-tempered, shrewish, cursed bitch.

The problem with the world, from Katharina's point of view, was that everyone else was so incredibly stupid.

"Katharina," gasped Bianca, scandalized, "You don't want a husband?"

"Why would I want a man? They're stupid, beastly, guided by greed and fancy and flesh. And I'm smarter than any ten of them together. You know that."

Bianca sighed. "I know. You read and write and speak every language of Italy-"

"-not like that was hard-"

"-and French and Latin."

"I'm learning Greek."

"What? Why?"

"Because only half of father's philosophy books are in Latin."

Bianca stared at her. "And you think any man will want a woman who-"

"Is more intelligent than her?" interrupted Katharina. "Of course not. And I don't want any husband who can't keep up with me. I'd rather remain an old maid than shackle myself to someone I'd run circles around."

"But Katharina-!" began Bianca.

"If you want a husband, you can have one. I'll neither have nor want for one."

"Father said-"

"Father dotes." This was not a lie. Baptista doted on his sweet, womanly, younger daughter because he was frightened of his older one. "If you want a husband, you will have one."

"What about you?" asked Bianca.

I've been running the business for four years, Katharina didn't say. I personally own four ships and whole warehouses full of goods. I can forge our father's signature better than he writes it. He stopped playing chess with me years ago because he always loses. There are two rich, reclusive old women who don't exist that I can become at two hour's notice. If father dies, I's make sure no one noticed for weeks, and then I'd vanish.

Bianca would be horrified. Katharina said, "I'll manage."

II.

Katharina pegged Petruchio for a fake two seconds after she met him. But he was a good fake, since he obviously had real wealth backing him up.

He was also after her fortune-that was how she thought of it, now-in a very obvious way. It was refreshing for someone to be honest about the reason for courting the elder, painfully sharp-tongued sister, though.

And, as they went on, it was refreshing to be pushed anywhere near the limits of her wit. He neatly dodged her question about his ancestry, at any rate.

But claiming that he could tame her!

Claiming that she'd agreed to marry him!

And she would have protested Petruchio's lie, only . . .

Only he was a fake and pretenders to nobility had a lifespan better measured in days and weeks than months and years. Only she could outsmart him, and he knew it, and she knew he knew it, and it was the first secret she'd shared with anyone since Bianca started being stupid. Only he had this smile that wasn't a smile and eyes that laughed at the whole world, especially the man she loved as father when he didn't catch the obvious clues.

And then he told her, and only her, that he was a thief as well.

Well, it might be fun.


They played chess.

Katharina won the first game. And the second game, and the third game, and the fourth and fifth. He won the sixth.

"So, who are you really?" she asked as she knocked over her king for the first time in years.

"Why, Petruchio of Verona, of course."

"Your accent is Mantuan," he pointed out.

He didn't bat an eye, but then, he wouldn't. "Why, if I have recently arrived from a long residence in Mantua, then what of it?"

"Oh, nothing I suppose. I just thought you should know you're holding your O a little too long. And that you should shorten and sharpen your T," she said, in perfect Veronese. "And get a crest."

He was trying hard not to smile. "And what would my lady have on my crest?"

"Why, a cock of course. A new game?"

She won that one too.


Tomorrow, we do the backstage, trapdoor tour and then go home.

Comments

Re: I wrote a 20~ page paper on Taming so I apologize now

[aqua-karen.livejournal.com]

Well, we know Shakespeare did leave his family behind in Stratford, although he also bought them a very nice house, sent back money, and there's evidence they also came to London on rare occasions to see productions of his plays. (In England, women could come to playhouses, although higher class women sort of 'disguised' themselves.) Shakespeare's view of women is going to always be hard to know, harder because of his sonnets and the apparent set of lovers in them (a young man whose identity we know and about whom we're finally starting to get past the "oh, men just... talked that way back then" denial, and the "dark woman" he praises with odd compliments.)

I've never read anything to indicate Shakespeare abused his wife. There's even some debate on how insulting the "second best bed" was meant to be, since leaving a specific piece of furniture behind wasn't actually unusual, and the "second best" might have been the bed they actually shared when he was home (leaving the best for his guests) whereas an actual snub would specify nothing (and she did inherit a substantial amount of property without specification in the will due to law.) It is true that his will doesn't refer to her affectionately, though. At worst it seems as though they had a working relationship that was not entirely hostile? He trusted her with his children, at least, including Hamnet and the turn in his writing towards tragedy after Hamnet's death doesn't say to me "didn't care about his family." I do think it's likely she wasn't the love of Shakespeare's life, or at least not the only one.

I also think that his female characters develop as you look at his older plays when compared to the earlier ones. Early plays have pushovers like Helena and Hermia from Midsummer Night's Dream, or Juliet getting tugged around by one male figure and then another ("marry him" "don't, marry him" "I'll marry you" "drink this" gawd), and Taming is one of his earliest plays (and one based on a common theme for stories and plays at the time.) Later plays, such as MacBeth, Tempest, or Antony and Cleopatra present a more complicated set of female characters. I think that culminates in Cleopatra, who acts like a spoiled brat (Kate's revenge?) but is really the one in charge, and ultimately chooses her own fate in a regal manner rather than being killed or dying all over her husband/lover's corpse. She gets off with more dignity than Antony does... There's also always Miranda in the Tempest who defies her father and asks her man to marry her, reversing all proper culture (omg). Shakespeare had to be sexist by modern standards simply based on the time period, but some of the sexism in his work I attribute to his earlier writing style and less developed ability to create interesting and complex females.

Shakespeare may have even collaborated in private on "The Tamer Tamed," since he did work quietly even after his 'retirement' and helped the aspiring/upcoming writers of The King's Men. I doubt he disapproved of it, since it was one of his former coworkers, collaborators, and probably friends who wrote it. James I's court is reported to have "liked" it.

Anyway, Queen Elizabeth got past by saying she had the "stomach of her father" and the "heart of a man" and various other things, by assassinating the heck out of anyone who blinked wrong, and by remaining a virgin (while also tempting suitors to ensure the possibility of continuing her line would remain, without producing an heir who'd promptly be in charge) but the backlash and fear of women with power in society was harsh. Legal prosecution of "scolds" went up 40%, if I remember right, and witch burnings came back into fashion in rural areas. She set herself forward, but by pushing women as a group back, really. I don't think it was a deliberate or conscious thing, society just naturally reacted that way in trends that are more obvious looking back than they probably were at the time.