How shakespeare retold: the taming of the shrews differs from the actual play essay

Introduction

One of Shakespeare’s remarkable works is the play entitled the “ Taming of the Shrew”. It was written as a comedy piece that shares the same romantic feel of his other works. In 1967, director Franco Zeffirelli took Shakespeare’s work into the silver screens with a movie adaptation of the same title. However, classical conservatives were critical about the cinema version of the play because of the perceived differences in the original play and with the screenplay. These differences, changes and other elements between the movie and the play will be evaluated by examining the context of the movie version and the original play itself. This is because there is an apparent change made to the movie, which was originally presented in Shakespeare’s original script.

Discussion

The movie adaption features a number of significant changes from its original script. For example, the 1967 movie starts with the scene where Lucentio is getting ready to leave for the University of Padua when he had a sudden glimpse of Baptista’s daughter Bianca. Lucentio was instantly mesmerized by Bianca’s beauty urging him to follow Bianca home. The scene is also the start of the introduction to the other characters such as two of Bianca’s suitors and Katharina with her looking out the window as if she was imprisoned. This implies the impression that Katharina is seemed like she was locked inside her house. Furthermore, the other side of Bianca also became apparent in the early part of the movie, which was not normally acted in the stage play. Bianca’s mean attitude towards her sister is very much portrayed and changes to her sweet self when she notices that someone is looking. These are something different from reading and watching the stage play version. In the play, Bianca is a very real person and not a woman that can be easily controlled.
Language is another factor that appeared to be different from the original play and those that were used in the movie. Since the original play and the movie adaptation along with the other films based on “ The Taming of the Shrew” such as “ 10 Things I hate about you” were put into production at different eras, the use of language is significantly different. For instance, the original play encompasses Elizabethan language while the movie version employs a mix of modern and Elizabethan English. However, the modern adaptations such as the movie “ 10 things I hate about you”, the audience was able to connect to Shakespeare’s work through a different light due to the appropriateness of the modern English language to the modern to the contemporary audience. The texts of the original script encompass poetic sentence construction, which is common in Shakespeare’s era. For example, the line “ Widow: Your husband [Kate’s], being troubled with a shrew, 
Measures my husband’s sorrow by his woe” (Act V scene ii, lines 28 – 31), if the same Elizabethan English was used in the movie adaptation, the audience would not be able to complete connect with Shakespeare, unless a more contemporary substitute were employed.
With regards to the leading characters Bianca and Katharina, they were portrayed differently in the movie. The reading of the play describes the female characters particularly Bianca as someone sensitive and very true to herself. However, the film versions have created a different Bianca that possesses quite an unpleasant attitude. Similarly, the character Katharina, she was portrayed as a character with a deeper personality and not just like a plain man-hater in the play, but the movies presented her a person with real emotions and rather more expressive. The same with Baptista Minol who is a very respectable and confident man in Shakespeare’s original play, but somehow appeared to be more timid character in the movies. The plot in the film and the play also shows a very different side. For instance, Petruchio is very unsuccessful in wooing Bianca and even attended a taming school in order to learn how to control Bianca (Act 4, Scene 2, p. 9). However, the movie did not portray Petruchio as the same person Shakespeare have created to be. Apart from the exampled scenes and characters herewith, there are other more striking differences in the movie, which were not as Shakespeare has intended when he originally wrote the script.

Conclusion

Shakespeare and the directors of his work have shown the variation of their visions of their vision of the story. However, the common themes and core values of the story were kept intact in all its versions be it the stage play production or the film. What’s important is the ability of the directors in presenting Shakespeare’s idea from another perspective that appeals to the larger audience as what Shakespeare did during his time. The perceived differences between the stage play and that of the movie version only highlights the need to present and support the framework of Shakespeare’s imaginative concept.

Works Cited

10 Things I Hate About You. Dir. Gil Junger. Perf. Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon-Levit and Larisa Oleynik. 1999. Buena Vista Pictures, 1999. Film.
Shakespeare, William, and Thomas G. Bergin. The Taming of the Shrew. New Haven, USA: Yale University Press, 1954. Print.
The Taming of the Shrew. Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Perf. Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Natasha Pyne and Michael Hordern. 1967. Columbia Pictures, 1967. Film.