Katherina (Kate) Minola

Last updated
Katherina Minola
The Taming of the Shrew character
The Shrew Katherina (Hughes).jpg
The Shrew Katherina by Edward Robert Hughes (1898).
Created byWilliam Shakespeare
Portrayed by
In-universe information
Spouse Petruchio
Relatives

Katherina (Kate) Minola is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's play The Taming of the Shrew . Referred to in the play as the titular "shrew" and the "ingenue", the play focuses on Katherina's taming by Petruchio into a more conventional role of a good wife. She is the elder daughter of Baptista Minola and the sister of Bianca Minola.

Contents

Role in the play

Katherina (Kate) Minola is the older daughter of Baptista Minola and the sister of Bianca. Many men have deemed Kate to be a poor option for marriage as she does not fit within the societal standards of what a good wife should be. Baptista also declares that Bianca may not marry until Kate has been married, which causes some outrage and plotting from Bianca's suitors. It is this declaration from Baptista that drives Petruchio to want to wed Kate, he is encouraged by Hortensio (who wants to wed Bianca). In the first encounter between Kate and Petruchio, Petruchio manages to match Kate's temper and convinces her father that she loves him but only pretends to hate him. Kate stays surprisingly quiet when Petruchio declares they will be married the following Sunday. The silence from Kate and Petruchio's words are enough for Baptista and the two are wed; though Petruchio arrives late and forces Kate to leave the wedding feast early.

Now at this point, Petruchio attempts to "tame" Kate in several ways. Kate is frightened by the way that Petruchio yells at his servants, she is kept from sleeping and eating, with Petruchio saying that each dish brought is not good enough for her. She is told several times by him that because he loves her so much, he cannot let her have such substandard food or sleeping conditions.

On the way to Padua to visit Baptista, Kate is further humiliated and broken down as Petruchio forces her to say that the sun is the moon, and that an old man is a beautiful woman. Kate's will has mostly been broken down by this point, likely due to the lack of food and rest. She therefore agrees entirely with everything her husband says. The two embrace and continue on to Padua, where Bianca and Lucentio announce they are to be married.

At the wedding feast of Bianca and Lucentio, Kate, Bianca, and "the widow" who is married to Hortensio are each called by their husbands in a competition to see who has the most obedient wife. Kate is the only one who comes and she then brings the other two women in on orders from Petruchio. Kate then gives a speech instructing the women to listen to their husbands.

There is a very clear sibling rivalry between Bianca and Kate. Kate at one point accuses Bianca of being their father's "treasure" and the one that he wishes to have married first. In Act II Scene I, Kate ties Bianca's hands and whips her as she is attempting to discover which of the suitors Bianca likes best. So there is clear animosity and abuse between the two siblings.

Performances

Florence Lawrence plays Kate in the first screen adaptation of the play in 1908, directed by D.W. Griffith. Mary Pickford then plays her in the 1929 "talkie" version alongside Douglas Fairbanks and Dorothy Jordan as Petruchio and Bianca. In the 1967 film, Kate is portrayed by famed actress Elizabeth Taylor and Petruchio is played by Taylor's then-husband Richard Burton with Natasha Pyne as Bianca.

In the modern remake 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) Kate becomes Kat Stratford and is played by Julia Stiles. There is also an ABC Family television series with the same title as the 1999 film, and Kat Stratford is played by Lindsey Shaw.

The Royal Shakespeare Company's 2019 production gives the play a new twist, as the cast is gender-bent; meaning that the role of Kate is now played by a man (Actor Joseph Arkley [1] ) and the other traditional masculine characters are now portrayed by women. [2]

Related Research Articles

<i>The Taming of the Shrew</i> Play by Shakespeare

The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1592. The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Christopher Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself. The nobleman then has the play performed for Sly's diversion.

<i>Kiss Me, Kate</i> 1948 stage musical

Kiss Me, Kate is a musical written by Bella and Samuel Spewack with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The story involves the production of a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and the conflict on and off-stage between Fred Graham, the show's director, producer, and star, and his leading lady, his ex-wife Lilli Vanessi. A secondary romance concerns Lois Lane, the actress playing Bianca, and her gambler boyfriend, Bill, who runs afoul of some gangsters. The original production starred Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Petruchio</span> Character in The Taming of the Shrew

Petruchio is the male protagonist in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Petruchio is a fortune seeker who enters into a marriage with a strong-willed young woman named Kate and then proceeds to "tame" her temperamental spirit. The role has attracted notable performers.

ShakespeaRe-Told is the umbrella title for a series of four television adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays broadcast on BBC One during November 2005. In a similar manner to the 2003 production of The Canterbury Tales, each play is adapted by a different writer, and relocated to the present day. The plays were produced in collaboration by BBC Northern Ireland and the central BBC drama department. In August 2006 the four films aired on BBC America.

<i>Kiss Me Kate</i> (film) 1953 film directed by George Sidney

Kiss Me Kate is a 1953 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film adaptation of the 1948 Broadway musical of the same name.

<i>The Taming of the Shrew</i> (1967 film) 1967 film by Franco Zeffirelli

The Taming of the Shrew is a 1967 period romantic comedy film directed by Franco Zeffirelli, based on William Shakespeare’s play about a courtship between two strong-willed people in 16th-century Italy. The film stars Elizabeth Taylor as Kate and Richard Burton as Petruchio, who were both nominated for BAFTA Awards for their acting. It features Cyril Cusack, Michael Hordern, Michael York, and Victor Spinetti in supporting roles.

<i>The Taming of the Shrew</i> (1908 film) 1908 short movie by David W. Griffith

The Taming of the Shrew is a 1908 silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company of New York City. The 17-minute short, which is based on the play of the same name by English playwright William Shakespeare, was filmed in just two days–October 1 and 7, 1908–at Biograph's studio in Manhattan and on location in nearby Coytesville, a borough of Fort Lee, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bianca Minola</span> Fictional character

Bianca Minola is a character in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (c.1590–1594).

Propeller is a theatre company which presents the plays of William Shakespeare in the UK and around the world. The director is Edward Hall.

Tom, Dick or Harry is a show tune from the Cole Porter musical, Kiss Me, Kate, introduced on Broadway on December 30, 1948 by Lisa Kirk ; Harold Lang ; Edwin Clay ; and Charles Wood. In the 1953 Hollywood film version, "Tom, Dick or Harry" was performed by Ann Miller, Tommy Rall, Bobby Van and Bob Fosse.

<i>Catharine and Petruchio</i>

Catherine and Petruchio is a reworking of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew by British playwright and actor David Garrick. It was written in 1754 and was performed far more often than the original The Shrew through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

<i>The Taming of the Shrew</i> (1929 film) 1929 film

The Taming of the Shrew is a 1929 American pre-Code comedy film directed by Sam Taylor and starring Mary Pickford and her husband Douglas Fairbanks. It was the first sound film adaptation of the Shakespearean play of the same name. The film was adapted by Taylor from William Shakespeare's play.

The Taming of the Shrew is a 1957 opera in four acts, five scenes by Vissarion Shebalin to a libretto by the Soviet musicologist Abram Akimovich Gozenpud, based on the comedy by William Shakespeare. Gozenpud utilized very little of Shakespeare's original text in his libretto, and completely eliminated many of the secondary characters and subplots from the play. His libretto does match the spirit of Shakespeare's play in its use of wit, the genuine passion of the story's lovers, and mixture of both lofty and coarse language.

There have been numerous on screen adaptations of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The best known cinematic adaptations are Sam Taylor's 1929 The Taming of the Shrew and Franco Zeffirelli's 1967 The Taming of the Shrew, both of which starred the most famous celebrity couples of their era; Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in 1929 and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in 1967. On television, perhaps the most significant adaptation is the 1980 BBC Television Shakespeare version, directed by Jonathan Miller and starring John Cleese and Sarah Badel.

The Taming of the Shrew in performance has had an uneven history. Popular in Shakespeare's day, the play fell out of favour during the seventeenth century, when it was replaced on the stage by John Lacy's Sauny the Scott. The original Shakespearean text was not performed at all during the eighteenth century, with David Garrick's adaptation Catharine and Petruchio dominating the stage. After over two hundred years without a performance, the play returned to the British stage in 1844, the last Shakespeare play restored to the repertory. However, it was only in the 1890s that the dominance of Catharine and Petruchio began to wain, and productions of The Shrew become more regular. Moving into the twentieth century, the play's popularity increased considerably, and it became one of Shakespeare's most frequently staged plays, with productions taking place all over the world. This trend has continued into the twenty-first century, with the play as popular now as it was when first written.

The Taming of the Shrew is a ballet in two acts choreographed by John Cranko to keyboard works by Domenico Scarlatti arranged and orchestrated by Kurt-Heinz Stolze. With scenery and costumes designed by Elizabeth Dalton, it was first presented as Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung by the Stuttgart Ballet at the Wṻrtembergische Staatstheater in Stuttgart on 16 March 1969.

The Taming of the Shrew is an opera in three acts by composer Vittorio Giannini. The work uses an English language libretto by Dorothy Fee and the composer which is based on William Shakespeare's play of the same name. The opera premiered at the Cincinnati Music Hall on January 31, 1953 in a concert performance starring Dorothy Short as Katharina, Robert Kircher as Petruchio, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and conductor Thor Johnson. Considered Giannini's most popular work, it was one of three finalists named for the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1953.

The Taming of the Shrew is a 1962 Australian television play, adapted by Alan Burke from the play by William Shakespeare. It stars Ron Haddrick and Brigid Lenihan.

<i>Vinegar Girl</i> 2016 novel by Anne Tyler

Vinegar Girl is a 2016 novel by American author Anne Tyler. It is the third book of Random House's "Hogarth Shakespeare" project, in which contemporary novelists retell stories from Shakespeare's plays. Interviewed by Ron Charles in The Washington Post, Tyler said " 'The Katherina in Shakespeare’s play is insane... She’s shrieking at Petruchio from the moment she meets him. And he’s not much better. So you know I had to tone them down. I’m sure that somebody is out there, saying, ‘This isn’t a shrew at all.’ "

References

  1. "Cast and Creatives | The Taming of the Shrew | Royal Shakespeare Company". www.rsc.org.uk. Retrieved 2020-02-17.
  2. "The Taming of the Shrew | Royal Shakespeare Company". www.rsc.org.uk. Retrieved 2020-02-17.