Arena Players: Taming of the Shrew July 5, 2009

Done in full Elizabethan costume and set against the magnificent backdrop of the historic Vanderbilt mansion, 'Taming of the Shrew' is Shakespeare's lively, sometimes bawdy, tale of the rambunctious Kate and her love affair with Petruchio. This play reflects the Elizabethan conviction that men owned their wives and consequently had the right to beat them or deny them food or sleep. Petrucio does not beat his new Bride, Kate, but he does deprive her of food, water, and sleep in his efforts to reform her. He mimics her own churlish behavior in the hope that, seeing herself mirrored in him, she will change her ways.