Katie Get Your Gun: Frolicking through the Wild Wild West in Bard on the Beach’s The Taming of the Shrew

Abstract

Meredith Beales reviews the Bard on the Beach production of The Taming of the Shrew, now relocated to the gun-toting West. This choice makes for an interesting rereading of the Katherine character, made even more sympathetic by her mistreatment at the hands of local townsfolk. The specificity with which the comedy Western world informs the eventual transformation of Katherine, and her surprisingly successful revenge against those who seemingly spent years bullying her, adds its own topicality to this uncomfortably nuanced play. A “satire of sexism” or “simply a straight-up sexist play”? Beales finds this Canadian production’s creative choices unusually informative, albeit within the confines of an ultimately troubling drama.