About This Production

All directors strive to make their production relevant to their audience by stamping their interpretation of the text and its issues onto the production. By adapting the text the director brings out a different, unique reading of the play, which will hopefully touch and teach their targeted audience.

In this production the director Leticia Caceres has adopted a Latino flavour. Due to her knowledge and Argentinean background she felt that the setting of 1930's La Boca would suit the play text as the themes dealt with, predominately: gender, patriarchy, class and institutions such as marriage, played a significant part in the lives of 1930's La Boca.  

La Boca is recognised for its colourful architecture, which is a result of the people's lack of economic resources. La Boca was settled and built by Italian immigrants who had a low socio-economic status and worked in warehouses and meat packing plants.  For this reason, it has often been seen as an underprivileged area.  However, the Latino people are known for their flamboyancy, best seen in the popular dance of 'The Tango'.

USQ's Taming of the Shrew embraces the sensual nature of The Tango and the issues faced by these people. This production has lots of sexual innuendo, uncovering the oppression of women and the exploitation of their gender. In keeping with this style, the director has decided that women will play all the fatherly roles such as Baptista, Vincentio and the Peasant.

For more information on La Boca and the Latino culture, please refer to: http://gosouthamerica.about.com/cs/southamerica/a/argBuenosAries.htm.

After looking at these sites can you see the correlation between the lifestyle and culture of the Latino people in La Boca and USQ's production of the Taming of the Shrew?

Considerations: Consider where USQ's Production is set, La Boca, Argentina and the themes focused on in this play ie gender, class, marriage as an institution, domestic violence and identity. Do these issues and the Latino background change the way the character's think? Ie Bianca and Katarina being the 'lower' 'second' sex and living in a patriarchal society.