There was great excitement at Stratford-upon-Avon a couple of years ago when it was announced that the Royal Shakespeare Company was including in their season a sequel to The Taming of the Shrew. Not a sequel by Shakespeare but by John Fletcher, who worked with Shakespeare in the same theatrical group, The King's Men.
Precise events in this period, as is the case with most facts about Shakespeare's life and work, are difficult to state with absolute confidence, but Fletcher was thought to have written The Tamer Tamed in the 1620's, after Shakespeare's death in 1616. On the other hand, Gordon McMullan of King's College, London, who worked with Stratford director, Greg Doran as textual adviser, dates the play at 1611. McMullan suggests that Fletcher was taking a calculated, almost cheeky, risk to attract the attention of the company's chief playwright, but the risk worked because, within a year, the two writers were collaborating on several plays including The Two Noble Kinsmen and Henry VIII.
After Shakespeare's death Fletcher took his place as principal dramatist for London's most successful theatre company. The Taming of the Shrew and The Tamer Tamed were often presented in tandem and were very popular into the 19th century, but the Victorians considered the sequel too brazen in its sexual politics for a more prudish age and it disappeared from the repertory.
John Fletcher was born in 1579 in Rye, Sussex, where his father preached in the church. Close by is Fletcher's birthplace, now a tea room where you may take coffee and cakes. His father later had several bishoprics ending up as Bishop of London and chaplain to Queen Elizabeth I. Young John went to Cambridge before embarking on a career as playwright and wrote several plays with Francis Beaumont before his more eminent collaboration with Shakespeare. Fletcher died of the plague in 1625. John Aubrey, famous diarist notes that Fletcher was about to travel out of London to escape infection but stayed behind to arrange for a new suit of clothes. His delay caused his death at 46.
BILL BRAY
Our final production for the season is a glorious Jacobean romp. John Fletcher's play is an irreverent and hugely entertaining sequel to Shakespeare's The Taming Of The Shrew. This fast paced comedy of the sexes depicts the methods used by Petruchio's new wife, Maria, with the support of her friends, in negotiating a position of equality in her marriage.
She rejects the "lie back and think of England" mentality of the Conduct Books of the day and plays a series of tricks on Petruchio in order to achieve her aims. To this end she barricades herself in her bedroom on her wedding night, treats him as a plague victim when he seeks sympathy by pretending to be ill, and shows contempt for him when he finally appears dead in his coffin. Crucially, Maria is joined by the late Katherine`s sister, Bianca, her own sister, Livia and all the other women in society. It is this collective of women, behaving as indecorously as possible in order to outrage and immobilize the men, that wins the day.
This wonderfully funny comedy was received with great acclaim when revived by the RSC and will provide a spectacular finale to our season, complete with vivid period costumes, music and dancing.
With a cast of more than 30 GWT favourites including Phil Newton, Colin Hill, John Wilson, Steve Marshall, Dave Webster, Roger Gollop, Peter Griffin and newcomer Dave Oatley, all of whom provide the opposition to the wilful antics of Vanessa Coatz, Libby Dix and Gaynor Griffin et al, this production will provide huge entertainment before it transfers to the spectacular Minack Theatre in Cornwall in August.
ALAN GOODWIN |