This play is unusual in that it starts with an induction, or an introductory framing narrative that in this case doesn't resolve at the end of the play - perhaps, a play within a pl-. Christopher Sly, notorious drunkard, gets kicked out of a pub and passes out on a street, where he is discovered, lying in his own piss and puke, by a really rich guy. Let's play a joke! says the really rich guy. When the pisshead wakes up, everyone pretend he is actually a lord who is emerging from a period of amnesia. GREAT IDEA says everyone WE GOT THIS.
Sly wakes up, hungover and disgruntled, and at first is confused as to why servants are suddenly offering him music, fancy beer, a posh couch to shag on, hawks to hawk with, nudie pics, poncy food and the like. Sly changes his tune when he realises he has a wife! (Wife is actually another guy in drag.) Enlivened by the prospect of getting frisky after an all-you-can-eat buffet, Sly is dead keen when the really rich guy - disguised as an attendant - invites him to watch a play... the very play we are about to see. Welcome to the Matrix.
This certainly sets up some of the key themes of the play - social mobility as raucous situational comedy, the issue of marriage, impersonation and fun with disguises, the things one will put up with to get laid - but it's not really carried through the rest of the play and flops around like an extra limb.
So, to the actual thing - and for your benefit I have offered you a bit of latitude in how you read this [hilarious comedy / sexist farce], for The Taming of the Shrew is a contentious play for the modern reader and there have been many attempts to modernise (and rehabilitate) it. Make up your own mind!
This play, like a good number of Shakespeare's oeuvre, opens with some unrequited boy-->girl action: Lucentio, a [really cool guy / dudebro], is trying to [woo / bone] some poor unsuspecting chick. In this case the chick is Bianca, who has done nothing to deserve this attention - and the attention of some other [really cool guys / dudebros] - but be quiet, mild-mannered, moderately pretty and alive. His clever servant, Tranio, totally approves.
Roadblock: while Bianca would hypothetically like to get married one day, her older sister, Katherine, is a [total bitch / headstrong clever frustrated woman who despairs of all the idiots around her and is in no way okay with being married off to the nearest tool just to suit everyone else], and their father Baptista has decreed that Bianca can't get hitched until Katherine has been [wedded / offloaded, most likely against her will, but hey - comedy!]. One of the first jokes of the play is the difference between courting Katherine and carting her, that is, publicly humiliating her for her womanly transgressions by being wheeled through town in an open cart. Says Tranio, "that wench is stark mad or wonderful froward!"
In keeping with an ongoing pattern of having dudes make decisions about ladies, two of Bianca's other suitors decide to find Katherine a husband (who, they decide, must be someone naturally a bit bonkers). Lucentio, watching all of this and already desperately in [love / lust] with a woman he's seen for all of three minutes, decides to jump the queue. The plan is this: Lucentio will pretend to be a tutor, so that he can [get some alone time with / properly perve at] Bianca, and Trantio will pretend to be Lucentio so that they can fulfil their obligations to something something whatever topsy turvy people swap clothes who cares.
There's other intrigue and such too but none of that matters because all of this business with Bianca being [passionately wooed by a bunch of really cool guys / lusted after by a bunch of manipulative horndogs, most of whom are pretending to be other people] is just a way of setting up the key conflict in the play and here comes Petruchio!
Petruchio is a total blowhard and refreshingly frank about his motivation: he is in town looking for a wife, and he doesn't care what sort of a person she is so long as she is super rich. And so it is decreed: Petruchio will [take one for the team / go about badgering a wealthy reluctant woman into marrying him] so that Bianca may be [made available to wed / freed up so that the rest of the horny rabble can have a good go] - and all the expenses he incurs in this endeavour will be paid by some of Bianca's [motivated / desperate] suitors. Here Petruchio's servant makes a sidelong comment that his master might in fact be a bit mad and prone to dirty tricks - total red flag, ladies.
Baptista, quite reasonably, tells Petruchio that if he wants to marry Katherine then she must love him, so Petruchio goes about [wooing / terrorising] Kate in a series of increasingly [hilarious / unpleasant] encounters. Things start off with a bunch of witty, feisty wordplay:
KATHERINE: Asses are made to bear, and so are you.
PETRUCHIO: Women are made to bear, and so are you.
but seeing as this isn't really getting him anywhere, Petruchio tells her that (with her father's consent) she's getting married whether she likes it or not. From here he moves to DEFCON [FUN / SCUM]:
- every time she does something, such as curse or refuse to talk, he will respond as if she has done the opposite
- he tells everyone that Kate really loves him, but that they've decided to pretend otherwise in public
- he turns up to the wedding looking like he's dressed himself in filthy rags found at the bottom of a skip, riding a half-dead, diseased riddled horse
- he abuses the priest and derails the marriage ceremony
- he turns the post-wedding trip to his house into a filthy, injurious debacle that wouldn't be out of place in your worst ever game of Oregon Trail
- he doesn't let Kate eat, sleep, or wear any of the nice clothes he's had made for her
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labor both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe,
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience—
Too little payment for so great a debt.
[...]
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway
When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
(in fairness, Muscleman and Starla really do love each other)
PERHAPS they come to some sort of unspoken understanding during their [lively, comic meeting of the minds / bitter psychological warfare].
PERHAPS it really is the case that [if you treat 'em mean you keep 'em keen / even the strongest of minds will give way under relentless torture].
PERHAPS Kate really comes to love Petruchio because [she recognises in him a passionate man and an intellectual equal / she has been completely broken down and even as a wealthy woman she has very little agency].
PERHAPS Kate will [actually be an obedient wife, or even an equal participant in her marriage / one day kill him in his sleep].
PERHAPS I'm just being very rude about a play that is often very clever and that features some of the best insults and witty reparte in all of Shakespeare-dom. But context is important, and this play is the most famous in a tradition of plays and stories in which socially transgressive women are 'tamed' by their husbands, by everything ranging from comic banter to beatings and sexual assault, because it was against the law to be a stroppy lady. Every time I'd get carried away with the farce I'd be brought painfully back to earth by things like the end of Act IV scene 1. Sure, fine, Petruchio barely raises a hand to her over the course of the play, but prior to any declarations of love and remorse he also announces that the best way to tame a shrew is to do what falconers do with new, unruly birds - starve them and deprive them of sleep - and that if the audience can think of any better tactics then hit him up. Hey-oh!
My advice is to read this excellent version of the play from the wonderful and very funny website Myths Retold, and then go watch 10 Things I Hate About You while downing a stiff drink.
STOP PRESS actually wait no watch this. I just found this combo of the play and some burlesque-y striptease and holy moly, why am I bothering to actually read all the plays when I can just watch these?
Verdict: #teamkatherine. Also, if I ever open a pub it's going to be called The Scold's Bridle and women will only pay 70c on the dollar until parity is achieved! Girlpower.
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