‘He speaks very shrewishly’: Apprentice-training and The Taming of the Shrew

Abstract

In this essay The Taming of the Shrew1 will be read as a document that may shed light on issues of theatrical apprentice-training in Shakespeare’s day. Juliet Dusinberre2 and Michael Shapiro3 have written in general terms about the parallels between boy actors and female characters in this play, Shapiro arguing for the first audiences’ dual consciousness of male actor and female character, and Dusinberre implying that both apprentices and women were seen as prime sites of potential unruliness. The emphasis in this paper is rather different. Taming and training were often seen as synonymous in Shakespeare’s day, and there is an analogous relationship between the taming of Kate — which involves training her to respond in ways that are perceived as ‘feminine’ — and the training of the apprentice actor who plays her. In these terms, what is interesting are the theatrical training-functions in the shrew’s role, and in particular the training-functions of its masculine elements.