The Taming of the Shrew as keeping her from eating and drinking, until she becomes a desirable, compliant, and obedient bride. The subplot features a competition between the suitors of Katherina's younger sister, Bianca, who is seen as the "ideal" woman. The question of whether the play is misogynistic or not has become the subject of considerable controversy, particularly among modern scholars, audiences, and readers. "The Taming of the Shrew" has been adapted numerous times for stage, screen, opera, ballet, and musical theatre; perhaps the most famous adaptations being Cole Porter's "Kiss Me, Kate" and the 1967 film of the play, starring Elizabeth Taylor and
The Taming of the Shrew in performance The play ends with her thoroughly tamed. Lacy's work premiered at Drury Lane in 1667, starring Susanna Verbruggen and George Powell. Samuel Pepys saw it on 9 April and again on 1 November, enjoying it on both occasions. The play was popular enough that it was still being performed as late as 1732, when it was staged at Goodman's Fields Theatre, and it seems to have supplanted "Shrew"s place on the English stage for the rest of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth. In 1716, two rival adaptations, both named "The Cobler of Preston", opened in