What follows is either a battle of equals discovering each other or a domestication played for laughs — the text supports both readings, and productions have staked their lives on each.
Read it with the frame story (a drunken tinker tricked into watching the play) intact, and with Katherina’s final speech as a live question rather than a verdict. Fast, physical, and guaranteed to start a conversation.
Taming of the Shrew on screen
1Kiss Me Kate (1953)
Film · dir. George Sidney · inspired by The Taming of the Shrew
2The Taming of the Shrew (1967)
Film · dir. Franco Zeffirelli
3The Taming of the Shrew (1980)
TV film · dir. Jonathan Miller
BBC Television Shakespeare; John Cleese as Petruchio
410 Things I Hate About You (1999)
Film · dir. Gil Junger · inspired by The Taming of the Shrew
Reading Taming of the Shrew this year?
Mark it in your record when you finish — one seat, kept for decades.