Shakespeare, the Musical and Political Humour in Kiss Me, Kate Revived
Shakespeare, the Musical and Political Humour in Kiss Me, Kate Revived
Author(s): Gabriela Iuliana Colipcă-CiobanuSubject(s): Theatre, Dance, Performing Arts, Gender Studies, Music, Studies of Literature, Politics and society, Sociology of Culture, WW II and following years (1940 - 1949)
Published by: Editura Casa Cărții de Știință
Keywords: adaptation; intertextuality; performance; humour; gender; politics;
Summary/Abstract: The present study focuses on Michael Blakemore’s turn-of-the-millennium revival for Broadway and the London stage of the 1948 musical comedy Kiss Me, Kate by Cole Porter (music and lyrics) and Bella and Samuel Spewack (book). The metatheatrical structure of Blakemore’s revival of this famous adaptation of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew impresses, among other things, by the multiplication of intertextual links as it projects Porter and the Spewacks’ as well as Shakespeare’s ‘battles of the sexes’ against the realistically ‘painted’ background of a world populated by actors, gangsters and, as an element of novelty, politically-involved US army representatives. Thus, Blakemore’s directorial perspective on the text(s) in performance turns out to be thought-provoking, drawing the present-day audience’s attention to a wider range of gender, culture and power-related forms of conflict, and making excellent use of subversive humour, the mechanisms of which this study will explore, to subtly comment on history-shaping political ‘games’.
Journal: Cultural Intertexts
- Issue Year: 2/2015
- Issue No: 03
- Page Range: 6-31
- Page Count: 26
- Language: English