Shakespeare Plays Available in Video Format
Scholars Online Educational Resources

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All’s Well That Ends Well
Antony and Cleopatra
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Hamlet
Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, part 1
Henry VI, part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Henry VIII
Julius Caesar
King John
King Lear
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Macbeth
Measure for Measure
The Merchant of Venice
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Pericles
Richard II
Richard III
Romeo and Juliet
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Winter’s Tale
Shakespeareana

Available versions

1929: Sam Taylor

1967: Franco Zeffirelli

1976: Kirk Browning

1980: Jonathan Miller

1982: Peter Dews

1983: Peter Dews/John Allison

1988: Richard Monette

2013: Toby Frow

2017: Barry Avrich


Adaptations

1953: Kiss Me, Kate

1958: Kiss Me, Kate

1994: Aida Zyablikova (animated)

1999: 10 Things I Hate About You

2003: Kiss Me, Kate

2005: ShakespeaRe-Told: The Taming of the Shrew


Related

2015: Shakespeare Uncovered, Season 2, Episode 1


The Taming of the Shrew
1976: Kirk Browning

This film (now available in the Broadway Theatre Archive series) is a recording of a stage production by the American Conservatory Theatre of San Francisco, with Marc Singer as Petruchio and Fredi Olster as Kate, filmed before a live audience. It is cast unabashedly in the mold of the Italian Renaissance Commedia dell’ Arte: it’s slapstick throughout, with non-stop sight gags, general silliness, and a fair amount of bawdy humor.

Declamation is exaggerated and rapid-fire; the actors prance around the stage with peculiar leaps and comic pauses; major actions and any number of sayings are punctuated with percussion ratchets, bicycle horns, and rim-shots. The interaction of Petruchio and Kate is extraordinarily athletic, with an almost circus-like interplay of clowning and physical humor, and their impeccable timing maximizes the farcical component of the play.

That such a treatment doesn’t allow the players to explore the complexities of character that emerge in the quieter background stretches of Shakespeare’s script should come as no surprise to anyone. Even if it were possible, the script has been pared back rather harshly, too, partly to make time for all that other stage business, and partly, one imagines, to avoid importing a serious note, when the production as a whole is committed to pure farce. Accordingly I hesitate to recommend this to anyone really seeking a definitive (or even semi-orthodox) version of The Taming of the Shrew, but it does have its own genuine pleasures, and it actually may say something about the comic context from which Shakespeare was drawing his work. Parents or teachers concerned with such things should be forewarned that it contains some rather crude language and gestures.


Baptista: William Paterson

Bianca: Sandra Shotwell

Biondello: Daniel Kern

Camellio: Charles Hyman

Emilio: Michael Keys Hall

Gremio: Raye Birk

Grumio : Ron Boussom

Haberdasher: Bobby F. Ellerbee

Hortensio : James Winkler

Katherina: Fredi Olster

Lucentio : Stephen Schnetzer

Mariamo: Harry Hamlin

Nathaniel: Al White

Pedant: Earl Boen

Petruchio: Marc Singer

Sugarsop: Barbara Dirickson

Tailor: Daniel Zippi

Tranio: Rick Hamilton

Vincentio: Laird Williamson

Widow: Deborah May

Clown: Althea Watson

Clown: David Kudler

Clown: Eric Nelson

Clown: Frank Abe

Clown: Jean Trounstine

Clown: John Salat

Clown: Joy Juvelis

Clown: Kathy Wong

Clown: Lynn Butler

Clown: Marc Hayashi

Clown: Melodie Butler

Clown: Nancy Erskine

Clown: Peter Davies

Clown: Rodney Kageyama

Clown: Susan Westerman

Clown: Suzanne Fry

Clown: Suzie Smith

Clown: Tomas Arana