Meryl Streep commenting that she played it on "automatic pilot". She performed the role of Katherine in "The Taming of the Shrew" for Shakespeare in the Park, and also played a supporting role in "Manhattan" (1979) for Woody Allen. Streep later said that Allen did not provide her with a complete script, giving her only the six pages of her own scenes, and did not permit her to improvise a word of her dialogue. In the drama "Kramer vs. Kramer", Streep was cast opposite Dustin Hoffman as an unhappily married woman who abandons her husband and child. Streep thought that the script
Meryl Streep citing "exhaustion" initially, although it was later revealed that there was a dispute over her salary. By the end of the decade, Streep actively looked to star in a comedy. She found the role in "She-Devil" (1989), a satire that parodied societal obsession with beauty and cosmetic surgery, in which she played a glamorous writer. Though the film was not a success, Richard Corliss of "Time" wrote that Streep was the "one reason" to see it, and observed that it marked a departure from the dramatic roles she was known to play. Reacting to her string of poorly received films,