A shrewed tale: about the “bullshit”, John Cleese, the
importance of being a bully, and why family relationships seldom work the way
we think they do
This is about “The Taming of the Shrew”, one of
Shakespeare’s plays I had never really read before, but which most people know and
probably even have a set of prejudices about firmly implanted within their
moral system. I suppose I had them too, and because of this was looking forward
to “really” reading the play, as I expected them to be taken apart when I had a
closer look. But I had never expected my reading to become THAT interesting.
The first approach, though, was totally disappointing.
Through my first reading I couldn’t help realizing that I was actually BORED.
Well, I didn’t give up, as I won’t give up on Shakespeare that soon, but it was
close. Maybe, I thought, I should be prepared to admit that even Shakespeare
has written something that is actually boring and STUPID!
The first of many surprises I had took place when I
read it again, this time, as I always do, reading aloud. And I was amazed how
much this actually changed what I was reading. I suppose this was because I
have read few of the comedies, and reading aloud is much more important there
than in the case of the tragedies and histories for bringing the characters to
life. I don’t think I understood anything, at an overall view, about the play,
but I was totally pleased with all those characters suddenly coming alive,
feeling like real people … And, this time not a new experience regarding the
comedies, I found them genuinely horrid. I mean, why can I muster empathy for
Macbeth, or even Richard III when he says that he can find no pity for himself
in himself!, whereas watching those characters in the comedies I am constantly
thinking that somebody PLEASE punch them in the face? (Of course it shouldn’t
be me because I don’t want to be a bully …)
(Well, I am afraid it is exactly because, if “done”
right, they feel like ordinary people most of which I don`t like. Which of
course says a lot about me, but this is not the least reason why I am reading
Shakespeare: because of what these plays are telling me about myself!)
The third big surprise I had when I had read the play
and was allowed to watch one of the two versions I had on dvd – which was the
one from the full cycle of plays by the BBC, done in the late seventies and
early eighties. I like watching them because they contain more or less the
complete text, and I like to see it “acted”, even though most of the
productions aren’t really good and you even see a lot of rather bad acting. But
they contain some genuine jewels as well, like Derek Jacobi as Richard II, Bernard
Hill as the Duke of York, or Patrick Steward as Claudius. And another one of
these pleasant surprises I had now seeing John Cleese as Petruchio.
At first I was just pleased – and curious, of course.
I obviously had some prejudices about Petruchio, and John Cleese didn’t fit
that mould at all … That is, he might have done. If he had played it the way I
would have expected him to play it. That is, kind of “loud” and totally cynical
and exaggerated. But he didn’t. This was the fourth big surprise: to see John
Cleese, whom I don’t think I have seen in an “ordinary” play before, as this
very serious, mature, and totally clever actor who knows so exactly what he is
doing, makes you see so clearly what this character is thinking or feeling that
it actually became painful at times. (But this is of course the kind of pain I
could imagine to actually GO to the theatre for!) Apart from a few lapses, I
think, he doesn’t play “comedy” at all. (And this is what I would tell the
actors first if I was a director and had the hubris to take on one of
Shakespeare’s comedies: Please not to play “comedy” at all!)
I think the first time I saw it I more or less saw
only John Cleese and thought: What a pity that the rest of the production
cannot keep up with this! Well, it did improve considerably the second time I
saw it, actually looking at the rest of it. It isn’t THAT great, of course, and
especially Katherine is totally disappointing, but you can at least see what
“they” thought they were doing. And, most important maybe, they didn’t try to deliver
a politically correct version of the play which would be the fastest way to
kill it.
Step four, after reading, reading aloud, seeing the
play, was that I started thinking about what I was actually feeling watching
it. And there I got my fifth big surprise. Of course this shouldn’t be
necessary because you usually know what you are feeling. But in this case it
was. Because it took “a step” I had to take, actually, to get at it. And this
was because I knew it was something I shouldn’t be feeling. The first thing I
noticed is that I was genuinely moved by the way John Cleese is playing
Petruchio – which is about the last thing you would expect regarding this
character. But maybe this is what always happens when I see an actor achieving
this “unity” with his character. When his attempt to “be” this character is
completely successful, and the totally gratifying experience of this actually shows
as some kind of “happiness”. But of course there must be some real reason for
wanting to “be” that character which the actor comes to share with the audience
in this way. There must be some feelings or some kind of experience he really
wanted to investigate – and, in the case of Petruchio, what might that be?
The next surprise, number six I think, is when I realized
what it was. Sometimes it is even difficult to categorize real feelings, but I
think it was some kind of sadness. Maybe that was “as what” I was able to feel
it because this is a feeling I understand very well at the moment, and for the
actor it might have been something completely different. But it doesn’t matter
because it is how what he “put into” his character “came out” at my end. And
this, I think, is really strange. I mean, the only person in that play you
should have reason to feel sad about would be Katherine, wouldn’t she?
In this case it was clearly impossible because the
acting was completely unsatisfactory and didn’t convey anything about what was
going on “inside her”, especially in the beginning. But it wasn’t really
necessary for me to understand what was going on because, in this case, I could
supply the feelings myself. As I know EXACTLY what Katherine is feeling, at the
beginning of the play, and why she is so “curst and shrewd” that nobody is able
to understand her and everybody thinks her to be a real horror. (Which she is!)
No surprise there – apart from the fact that it took me so long to discover it.
(Surprise number seven! And the second important reason for reading Shakespeare,
of course: “his” potential to constantly surprise me.) In fact I first
discovered it seeing the play, to be exact: the “fighting-scene” between the
two sisters. Where you actually see how much they hate each other. And I
obviously had to SEE it to be able to remember …
I mean, to somehow remember these feelings, not
“literally” because our family wasn’t one where people hated each other but
were you were supposed to love each other, which was, at the time, kind of
unlucky for me, I think, because I didn’t realize that it wasn’t true. On the
whole it was lucky because it turned out good in the end. I came to love my
siblings when they were grown up and I could see that they had become real
human beings. (Or rather I had?) But at the time I didn’t love them at all. Not
my first sister at least who was born almost exactly one year after me and who
was the loveliest child you can imagine, whereas I had never been remotely
pretty, not even as a baby. It isn’t strictly the same story as Katherine’s
with whom there is nothing wrong as to her appearance. It says in the play that
she is young and good-looking, and her lack of attractiveness lies exclusively
in her disposition. But I felt strongly that the reason for being a shrew –
neutrally speaking: to repel other people by unattractive and aggressive
behaviour – basically was identical in both our cases. I don’t even remember
aggression and hatred – maybe there was none. But I remember very well that I
made absolutely sure to behave in a way that nobody ever would find me “nice”
or attractive, which is kind of difficult to understand, as in fact most
personality disorders probably are. Of course I may be wrong about Katherine,
and she is “just a lunatic” that deserves to be cured by strong measures, but I
don’t think so. Of course she is rather different from me, obviously, as to the
way she is acting out her frustration, but I imagine that she was so fed up
with a lifetime of everybody doting on her “sweet” sister that it was just
impossible for her to behave differently. Because, although she had probably
been a handsome child, she would have lacked “sweetness” and pleasantness
already when she was little, and she probably always had been a little slow at
taking in the bullshit adults are feeding you at that age. As I was … I don’t
remember this kind of hatred, but what I remember distinctly, probably because
it has never “gone away” completely, is the frustration, and how clearly I
perceived how small the “window of opportunities” life has to offer would be
for me. And I imagine it is the same for Katherine. That she somehow resists,
in a more obvious way, the only sensible option available: “If you can’t be
what you love you learn to be the things you are not”. (A sentence of infinite
wisdom, not Shakespeare this time, but “Passenger”.)
Well, Katherine was as easy as pie, or much easier, at
least for me. Whereas Petruchio took a few more turns. But the surprising thing
(surprise number eight probably) was that both of these characters met, in the
end, in my imagination, in an encounter as beautiful and satisfactory as a
kiss. Although there are probably more than a few turns still to get there.
First of all: I suppose a bully is the kind of person most people appreciate
least, with the possible exceptions of their bosses, their partners, or maybe
serial killers. And here I am watching Petruchio bullying his servants in a
really cruel way, bullying his wife until he has turned her into a bully
herself, because this is what happens in this play! I wouldn’t say that I actually
approve of anything he is doing. But I somehow understand him, the way John
Cleese makes him understandable. (And this is the third of the many most
important reasons I love Shakespeare: that really intelligent and imaginative
actors can make me change my attitude towards characters I loathe or despise
(like Lear or Mark Anthony) and understand something about them that makes them
much more interesting, and maybe humanizes them in my view. And this is
certainly a horribly old-fashioned point of view, but somehow I think that
actors are still much more important for our emotional and moral lifeline than
we think they are. (And than they think they are, probably!) I cannot prove
this because for me they always have been, in a way, and so I cannot know how
my inner life would have turned out without that experience. But I can easily
IMAGINE what it would be like, and how it would make me feel, not least ABOUT
MYSELF!) It doesn’t change, though, that what is happening in this play is a
true horror – as almost always in “Shakespeare” – and I still understand it,
understand that character, even like him in a way. What’s going on here? What’s
wrong with me? Or what’s wrong with the world??? I don’t suppose I’ll ever find
out. But what I certainly love about Shakespeare is that I don’t get any
answers. All I get is questions worth thinking about.
But what first struck me about John Cleese playing
Petruchio, apart from something that I categorized as sadness, or discontent,
or low spirits, is that he isn’t playing him as a “classical” cynical bully.
Which he certainly could have done incomparably well! But one thing that is
totally obvious is that he doesn’t get anything out of his bullying, that he
doesn’t really like it. Again, not to forget: for the poor creatures that are
the victims of his bullying it doesn’t make a difference if the person bullying
them does it because he likes it or as a strategic measure. But it makes a difference
for how we perceive HIM. And, to try a cynical view: in a world of limited
“psychological” options it kind of makes sense to maltreat a servant as stupid
and useless as Grumio, as well as an even more useless wife. (The bullying of
his other servants is exclusively strategic, to put the fear of God into
Katherine, which doesn’t make it any more inhuman, of course. But I am afraid
servants, in this world, weren’t usually perceived as human beings.) And it
isn’t pleasant because it appears to be really hard work as well. For example:
to torture somebody – personally! – by depriving him of sleep presupposes that
you won’t get any more sleep yourself.
The second distinct impression I got of Petruchio is
that he is somebody who doesn’t like wasting time. And this was in fact my
“key” to this character and how his personal situation is linked to Katherine’s.
“I wasted time, and now does time waste me.” This quote from “Richard II”
actually is on my kitchen cupboard as one of the things I don’t want to forget
about. And I won’t put: “It is never too late” beside it, which is something
you hear all the time, because I know it isn’t true. In my opinion it is part
of the “bullshit” we pretend to believe because we want to believe it, and
constantly “feed” to others. But the people who actually get things done others
envy them about are those who don’t know what that is: wasting time. In the
case of Petruchio it appears kind of crass the way he proceeds to find a wife. Of
course you might say he is only looking for a financial opportunity, but I
don’t think this is quite true. I’d say he is looking for an opportunity to
improve his situation in life, which is what most people do when they find this
situation unsatisfactory. In fact, a considerable part of the play and the relationships
of the people in it is about this kind of opportunity, especially financial.
And somebody like Petruchio who hasn’t one romantic bone in his body, living in
a community of merchants, knows that happiness without wealth doesn’t exist!
But it is of course crass, the way he goes for it, head on, just taking the
first opportunity.
To the question why he is doing this I found an answer
based partly on speculation, partly on what is actually in the play, and partly
on how John Cleese appeared to perceive Petruchio. For me it made even sense
that he isn’t still very young, although he is still a young man, as it says in
the play, and that means probably not older than thirty-five. And it says in
the play as well that his father died recently, and he took over his
inheritance. Which is also a recurring theme in “The Shrew”: inheritance and
young men waiting to finally take over – because before that happens they are
dependent on their fathers, and the really good opportunities for marriage are
going to elder and wealthier men (like Gremio)! And for somebody who is not
very patient ten years or more of this kind of situation might be enough to
make him genuinely frustrated and dissatisfied with his life. So, when the
first opportunity presents itself he is prepared to think: It’s now or never!
And he just goes for it.
And this situation at the beginning of the play for
both Petruchio and Katherine is actually the same: they are used to – or rather
never got used to! – living the “wrong life”. For Katherine it is worse because
she can see no way out, whereas for Petruchio his “window of opportunities” has
finally been opened. But he knows what it feels like from recent experience:
living in the wrong place, with the wrong set of people – that is: a place
where you cannot do anything useful and productive and people who don’t show
you the respect and appreciation you think you are owed! – and there appears to
be NO WAY OUT!
Now we are approaching the place where this story
might actually turn into a “love story”, although maybe a totally cynical one.
As some people might think. I don’t know. Maybe the kind of love works best
were people actually get what they need to improve their lives through the
other person, and this might not be romantic at all. My keys to the love-story
were Petruchio’s frustration and his aim in life, which is, apart from wealth: “peace”,
“love”, a “quiet life, an awful rule and right supremacy”. (The last two items
are certainly hard to swallow in a twentyfirst century context but strongly echo the
contemporary belief expressed in many of Shakespeare’s plays that only the “right
rule” can guaranty the right order of things, and happiness!, and outside of
this there is only chaos, destruction and misery.) And to perceive how totally
shitty Katherine is feeling being a shrew. And I know this, I know what it
feels like! And I am sorry to say this, but it is from personal experience: In
this case you really need sorting out. Needless to say that the method
Petruchio applies, as such, wouldn’t have worked on me nor probably on anybody.
But I am sure that everybody who had therapy knows this: It isn’t pleasant!
There is no “good way” of getting this kind of thing out of your system. As I
was the kind of child that took care of her loose teeth herself rather than letting
anybody else touch them I did it myself in this case as well. But it wasn’t
pleasant. And it totally depends on opportunity. I might say as well: I just
got lucky! And you get other parts “plucked out” as well, in the process.
So, I cannot say that I understand everything that
happens and how Petruchio “cures” Katherine. But there appears to be a point
where she is suddenly able to see what he wants from her. And maybe that this
is something she wants as well. Because the only option for her to save her
life and maybe achieve happiness is to get out of this horrid family situation
where everybody hates everybody else. It is not only Katherine bullying her
sister but Bianca striking back of course, in her own way. And the father who
must be totally frustrated as well by the lack of “peace and quiet” in his own
household is bullying his daughters. And although this is probably not the
COMPLETE truth about most families: the cynical definition of a family is "a social unit
where people are bullying each other on a daily basis". And this is true, even
if they love each other much more than they hate each other. (Sorry, but if you
want to avoid being a bully the most important thing to avoid is probably
having your own family! Anybody else you can somehow get away from.) But as
Shakespeare goes for worst case scenarios we may safely assume that there is no
love lost anywhere within THIS family.
So Katherine wants out, of course. She just doesn’t
see the option to get married to somebody she actually wants. And the only
reasonable explanation for her changed attitude in my opinion is that she
suddenly has perceived Petruchio as that person. Totally strange, maybe, but,
as somebody who is invariably bored by the usual kind of romantic love-story, I
find this kind, that might be totally cynical on the one hand, genuinely moving
on the other. Because the one thing I know for certain is that Katherine is not
just changed outwardly into a “model wife” (which might be a parody, though I
don’t know how this makes sense), but that she is actually FEELING BETTER. And
again I know exactly why she is feeling better because exactly the same thing
happened to me, at least “theoretically”. As I perceive Katherine as somebody
who could never live with the “bullshit” and Petruchio strikes me as the same
kind of person I suppose that she was just looking for somebody she could
actually RESPECT. Somebody different from the stupid, bullshitting lot that
courts her sister – who, of course, doesn’t tell the truth about her feelings,
which Katherine does!, but twists everybody around her little finger until she
finally sees her opportunity to “strike”. I think I know what Katherine is
thinking about her sister … don’t want to repeat it! But she herself actually
finds RELEASE from the bullshit in the end by finding somebody who might be
very much LIKE HERSELF! Whereas Bianca is probably looking for somebody who is
young and handsome and amenable - easy
to twist around her little finger, Katherine is looking for somebody who is
honest, direct, practical, assertive, and immune to the “bullshit”, as she is
herself. And, again, I know how she feels, having finally found that person.
Because, for the first time in fifty years, I have found out that somebody like
this exists for me. Somebody I could completely approve of because I RECOGNIZE
him as the same kind of human being I am myself. And even if there is no real
“opportunity” in there for me it is just impossible to say how completely this
experience has changed ME. So I leave it to “Shakespeare” to say it. And it
might not be the most romantic kind of love-story, but for me it is a totally
moving one, especially in a grim world like this.
What a grim world it actually is we see in that last
scene when they are sitting down at the dining table to “feast and be merry” –
and all they do is to tear one another to shreds. I liked this scene in the BBC
production because they show a lot of what is “going on” behind the obvious plot
of Petruchio showing off and presenting Katherine as a “model wife”. Of course
it is about him being proud of his achievement, and about the fact that he has
been right – and much cleverer than the others! But in this case he is the only
person who is totally relaxed, and content!, for the first time, and who
doesn’t appear to feel the need to tear off the head of somebody in that room!
It is in fact interesting and revealing how completely, and expressly!, he
stops his bullying as soon as he has reached his goal. But of course he can do
that because now his wife has taken over! If you look closely, in this
production, the scene is not (only) about Petruchio showing off but about
Katherine taking her revenge on everybody else. Of course this view is informed
by the kissing-scene that has taken place before, and there was a long,
passionate kiss. So you know they have reached an agreement. But what kind of
agreement this is you can see in this last scene. If it is a love-story it
certainly isn’t a story about “falling in love”. It is about two people who
have “joined forces’” because they know they will work well together as “an
item”. If this is a proper “love-story” I don’t know, but it is a story, for
them, that bodes well for their future – whereas the future of the other two
marriages, in a grim world like this, is entirely left to chance.
And it is scenes like this, which are so smartly
written that you can hardly believe it, for which I love “Shakespeare” most. There
was another scene I could hardly believe as soon as I had understood it: the
fighting-scene between the two sisters. That is, it is so incredibly “close to
life” that I still don’t understand it but want to see it acted again, maybe by
two actresses I like better than the ones in this production! But these two
scenes are a stellar example for what I like Shakespeare best: that “he” will
always be cleverer and “better” than I am. That is, what he has written will
always be better than my READING! And if I ever think again, reading
Shakespeare, that this is probably a load of bullshit, I shall remember this
experience. And I shall remember how I came to read Shakespeare again, and the
reason why I cannot imagine now ever to stop reading his stuff: that he is the
only author who is a hundred percent “bullshit-free”. And just now, when I am
thinking about it, I remember how often I have noticed and appreciated this
before. And it will probably be a recurring theme of this blog. The main reason
maybe of many reasons for reading Shakespeare!
