Tumbling Tricks: Presentational Structure and ‘The Taming of the Shrew’

Abstract

Much interest has recently been shown in the contributions of the actor in the performance of Tudor comedy. Lesley Wade Soule's subject is the larger performative framework of such contributions. Focusing on the main action of The Taming of the Shrew, she finds revealing examples of the characteristic presentational structures found in Tudor comedy, including direct audience address, mimesis as a pretext for presentation, a ritual/project structure, the use of stage personae, and a concluding ceremony of celebration. Her essay describes the nature of these structural elements, and offers examples of their functions in the play's performance as bodied forth in the text. Lesley Wade Soule is Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of Exeter, where she teaches directing and the staging of Shakespeare. She has written articles on performance in the medieval and Elizabethan theatres and is the author of Actor as Anti-Character: Dionysus, the Devil, and the Boy Rosalind (Greenwood Press, 2000).