George Bernard Shaw famously wrote: 'No man with any decency of feeling can sit it out in the company of a woman without being extremely ashamed of the lord-of-creation moral implied in the wager and the speech put into the woman's own mouth.' Directors and actor alike are immediately confronted with this fundamental question of interpretation when putting on ‘Shrew’. Do they play it straight? For laughs? Or ironically?

In Gale Edward's 1996 production, Josie Lawrence played Katharine's submission completely straight. The final speech of perfect wifely wisdom was taken as if Kate's spirit had been completely broken. What Edward's production seemed to be saying was that no sane man could possibly want a marriage founded on this sort of inequality.

The role of Katharine provides many challenges - not only ideological ones - and has seen many prestigious actors take up the role: Barbara Jefford (1954 – photo 2), Peggy Ashcroft (1960), Vanessa Redgrave (1962 – photo 3), Janet Suzman (1967 – photo 1), Paola Dionisotti (1978) and Fiona Shaw (1987) to name but a few.

Fiona Shaw and Brian Cox played Katharine and Petruchio in a production directed by Jonathan Miller in 1987 (photo 4). Fiona Shaw describes how she prepared to play the fiery Kate:
'The Kate I played in ‘The Shrew’ was a direct product of the rehearsal process. I was conscious of wanting to radiate the sense of terribly clouded confusion that overwhelms you when you are the only woman around. That was Kate's position, and it was mine: she in that mad marriage, me in rehearsal.'
(Carol Rutter, ‘Clamorous Voices: Shakespeares Women Today’, London: The Women's Press, 1988)