The Taming of the Shrew in performance reviewers as being extremely physical. Lunt and Fontanne were the most famous celebrity couple of the time, and their backstage fights were rumoured to be just as ferocious as their on-stage performances. So legendary did the tempestuous reputation of the couple become that Cole Porter's 1948 musical "Kiss Me, Kate", about a fiery couple attempting to stage an adaptation of "The Taming of the Shrew", was based on their real-life antics. In the latter half of the twentieth century, the play has been frequently staged all over the world. Some notable productions include: "The Shrew"s popularity on stage has continued
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