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 (ballet) an obedient wife. Shakespeare chose his title to signify to his audiences that the play was about the marriage of a man to an ill-tempered woman given to scolding, nagging, and aggression. Such a woman, especially a wife, was known in the sixteenth century as a shrew, so called after a tiny rodent with a notoriously hostile and unpleasant nature. A woman convicted in court for being a shrew was often punished in Shakespeare's day by being confined to stocks on the village green or repeatedly dunked in a nearby pond or lake. The setting is Padua, a city in