Petruchio is a woman who isn’t afraid of a challenge. Which is just as well because her latest task is to tame a beautiful but waspish boy called Kate. But Kate isn’t going to make it easy for her… Has Petruchio bitten off more than she can chew? Read more …
Jo Clifford has exploded Shakespeare’s contentious classic to create a raucous and riotous new play which invites us to imagine a world in which women hold all the power. Exploring gender, identity and power this is The Taming of the Shrew for our times.
Jo Clifford’s inventive and playful production gives the characters new conflicts, complexities and genders.
While it's not an entirely coherent experience, this Shrew is consistently diverting, benefiting from the excellent comic timing exhibited by the cast. It will probably be of little use, however, to anyone studying the original as a set text.
Carrying on the success of last year’s collaboration between the Sherman and the Tron Theatre, productions such as these give a lot to hope for future Scottish/Welsh theatrical alliances.
With a 75 minute run time, this is a breathless and exhilarating take on the original text that is performed is an engaging and accessible way.
It’s mind-blowing and sometimes confusing stuff, but as a trigger for debate about sex, gender and violence, it’s hard to imagine a more provocatively enjoyable show.
Jo Clifford’s gender-bending new reading of the story of how Katherina learnt to succumb to Petruchio’s will proceeds to turn the play’s world upside down, break every rule going and run with it to make a whirlwind piece of queer-core cabaret inspired subversion.
Jo Clifford's reputation as naughty fairy godmother and provocateur is further reinforced with this exquisite, witty production which refuses to behave itself.
Jo Clifford's new version of Shakespeare's classic The Taming of the Shrew masterfully shines a light on society’s gender roles.
Bold, inventive and dry as a nun’s crotch, director Michael Fentiman’s absurdist production for the Tron and Sherman Theatre (their second collaboration after The Motherf**ker with the Hat) is at times too clever and out-there for its own good; but it’s a rollicking roller coaster of a ride – which is more than can be said for Matt Gavan’s petulant Kate who is dismissed as a “stinking piece of shite”.
A rising call to gender-anarchy that is both playful and provocative.
'Women are the powerbrokers': gender-flipping Shakespeare's Shrew
Jo Clifford--The Taming of the Shrew
Jo Clifford on making a Taming of the Shrew for the 21st century.
Tron Theatre, Glasgow from Wednesday March 20, 2019, until Saturday March 30, 2019. More info: www.tron.co.uk
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