The Theme of Gender Conflicts in the Ballet Versions of The Taming of the Shrew by Jh. Cranco and J.-C. Maillot

Abstract

The comedy The Taming of the Shrew by W. Shakespeare has become the source of the numerous stages, the screen versions and performances in the musical theater (the musical, the opera, the ballet). The study shows that there were the characteristic signs of interpretation of Shakespeare’s play in the entertainment genres of each epoch, which generalized gender traits of relationships and the moral characteristics of the characters — from subordination to the patriarchal norms to the “battle of sexes”. The ballet genre is the most indicative for the interpretation of this play, since it clearly characterizes the bodily contacts of the characters of the work and the relationship with their spiritual motives.

Despite of the variants of the embodiment of The Taming of the Shrew in the drama theater, the opera, the cinema, the ballet and the musical have already been considered, the comprehensive studies of the peculiarities of the interpretation of the gender conflict of the play in the various theatrical genres have not been conducted. The author bases his research on the hypothesis that the nature of the gender conflict of the characters in the drama of ballet also affects the nature of bodily expression in the choreographic embodiment. The versions of Kranko, Mayo and some other choreographers differ in gender meanings that determine dance and plastic solutions.