The Taming of the Shrew (Delacorte) NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (189)
See it if you like your Shakespeare reconcieved, you like a good discussion after a show, you want to see Cush Jumbo at the top of her game as Kate.
Don't see it if you like pretty Shakespeare, are anti-feminist, or can't wait in line.
See it if Like your bars twisted and different, want to laugh
Don't see it if Like traditional Shakespeare
See it if you like visionary depictions of the Bard
Don't see it if you're a Bard traditionalist
See it if You want to see a bold, interesting take on this Shakespeare classic with great performances. They handled the ending of the play very well.
Don't see it if you prefer more classical Shakespeare, don't like free shows, or don't like women. Even if you object to the play, give this one a try!
See it if you simply enjoy shakespeare in the park
Don't see it if you are not open to a fresh and delightful version
See it if you want to see a sexist play performed by feminists who are making a point about how much women are still oppressed by our society.
Don't see it if you want to leave a play feeling happy or you don't want to see a politically minded play.
See it if /since circus-like atmosphere/props/broad vaudevillian gestures and breaking fourth wall enhance comedy
Don't see it if /though satire of misogyny (beauty pageant frame tale, all-female cast) provocative, production not magical like Shakespeare's best comedies
See it if you want to see an interesting adaptation of Shakespeare with an all-female cast, some strong acting, & clear intention (love it or hate it)
Don't see it if you find an all-female cast gimmicky or don't like the idea of a beauty pageant being an added framing device to a Shakespeare play
Critic Reviews (42)
"Jumbo proves that she’s no more adept at comedy than drama...What you get is a lot of small men on stage. It’s just not very funny, and Lloyd doesn’t push the machismo enough to be parody…McTeer delivers an adequate Petrochio…Lloyd means to say that while the play has the word 'shrew' in the title it’s populated with a bunch of total pricks. The men are the ones who’ve made Kate bad. This take is interesting for about five minutes. In performance, it turns dull fast."
Read more
“Breezy adaptation, canny casting and a handful of delectable performances combine to make Shakespeare’s ‘Taming of the Shrew’ a 425-year-old romp for audiences...To start with the best, we have the Petruchio of Janet McTeer opposite the Katherina of Cush Jumbo. Keep your Alfred Lunts and Alfred Drakes and Richard Burtons...If we’re going to have ‘Taming of the Shrew’, this is a fine way to have it.”
Read more
“A radical interpretation featuring an all-female cast staged by a female director. The intentions may be honorable, but the results are mixed at best...Despite the directorial overkill, Lloyd knows how to keep a show moving...Plus, there are performances to cheer. Janet McTeer is irresistibly infectious as a macho Petruchio...Cush Jumbo’s Kate is spirited and fiery, but she fails to make sense of the heroine’s final conversion to domesticity or the frantic denouement imposed by Lloyd.”
Read more
"How you take to this will depend on the extent to which you are willing to revel in an elaborately vulgar staging geared more for low-brow laughs...It is all so very hyper throughout, which provides fun for those who delight in this sort of interpretation but does nothing to illuminate the play...On this occasion, Shakespeare is all but abandoned for a vaudevillian romp that takes away from seeing how well women might more seriously perform traditional male roles."
Read more
"A concept gone off the rails with no cohesive point of view...In this production, the heroine is a tantrum-throwing, childish brat (and not believable as that, either). As conceived one presumes by Lloyd and played by an ill-suited Cush Jumbo, her only merit is a dowry. The relationship is meaningless...The best reason to sit through this mishmash is far and away Janet McTeer…McTeer, calculates, manipulates, revels, and gloats in perfect tenor. A masterful turn."
Read more
"There's nothing tame about Lloyd's new gender-bending production...This show-within-a show adds a lot of political texture to the drama...Shifting genders, the femmes on stage do a remarkable job at impersonating all the dramatic characters tucked into the Bard’s play...No question that Lloyd likes to rattle theatrical tradition here...Its humorous possibilities are freshly plumbed in Lloyd's savvy new production."
Read more
“I can’t say that Phyllida Lloyd’s all-women production made me see this supposed farce, deep down, as something other than a tragedy...Wonderfully cast with Janet McTeer as Petruchio and Cush Jumbo as the unruly heroine...The problem-and, ultimately, it is a problem-is that we still don’t understand these characters...We miss the discipline, the psychological underpinning that might have made ‘Shrew’ less of a revenge joke and more of a Shakespearean reclamation.”
Read more
"A brand-new, spirited and frequently fun production…Fun isn't always a term applied too readily to this troubling problem play about a forced marriage, but in Lloyd’s hands Kate is such a spirited, feisty presence that it smooths away some of those concerns…Lloyd’s direction softens and deepens it, too. It lets us look at the play afresh from a female perspective – and the production generates a distinct chill beneath the surface frivolity."
Read more