Petruchio

featuring interviews with actors Patrice Jean-Baptiste and Simon Paisley Day and Gonzaga University professor Heather Easterling

One of Shakespeare’s most controversial plays, “The Taming of the Shrew,” gets put under the microscope in this episode as we examine the character Petruchio, the man who supposedly tames the play’s titular shrew. Discussed in this episode is what impact the play’s induction scene has on our perception of the play’s characters, Petruchio’s “taming” methods, and the ongoing debate about whether “Taming of the Shrew” should be retired from performance.

Guests on this episode are Patrice Jean-Baptiste (she/her), who spoke with Shakespeare’s Shadows in the midst of playing Petruchio in September 2023 in Boston with the Actors’ Shakespeare Project; Simon Paisley Day (he/him), who reflected back on taking on the role at Shakespeare’s Globe in London in 2012, and Dr. Heather Easterling (she/her), professor of English and of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Gonzaga University.

This episode contains explicit language and discussion of domestic abuse and domestic violence.