Opinion
The tale of the untamable shrew
Donald Trump has the nastiest tongue ever heard in American politics. But unlike Shakespeare’s Kate, he won’t be persuaded to be more civilised.
Maureen DowdIs Shakespeare a misogynist? Should The Taming of the Shrew be retired, given Kate’s archaic speech of surrender at the end, laying out what women “oweth” to their husbands, or sovereigns, and urging wives to put their hands under their husband’s feet?
Can that speech be mitigated if Kate winks at the end, as Mary Pickford did in the 1929 movie with Douglas Fairbanks? Or if Kate poisons the champagne at the end, the coup de cyanide of Lileana Blain-Cruz’s 2011 Yale School of Drama production with Lupita Nyong’o?
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