The Taming of the Shrew

Initially offered in Garrick's version, Catherine and Petruchio, at Philadelphia's Southwark Theatre in 1766 with Miss Cheer and the younger Hallam in the title roles, Shakespeare's comedy continued to be produced in this and similar versions, and usually with similar titles, for over a hundred years. Later casts included Mrs. Mason and Thomas Abthorpe Cooper, Mrs. Darley and William Macready, Mrs. Sharpe and William B. Wood, and Ada Clifton and Edwin Booth. Augustin Daly presented the first more or less faithful version, under its correct title, in 1887 with John Drew and Ada Rehan in the leading roles. He offered the play as high comedy, not farce, and mounted it with sets of carefully painted realism and opulence. Julia Marlowe and E. H. Sothern and Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were later hailed as the dueling lovers. The great American musical Kiss Me, Kate (1948) was derived from the comedy, offering brief snatches of it as well as using lines in its lyrics, especially its finale, but framing it as a play within a play and setting the frame, which told a similar story, in modern times. Alfred Drake and Patricia Morison were the original leads. More recent productions of Shakespeare's original must deal with the antifeminist tone of the comedy, and many stagings tend to get gimmicky to avoid modern parallels, such as a popular 1990 mounting in Central Park with Morgan Freeman and Tracey Ullman that was set in the Wild West.