These are discussion activities designed to put you in the ‘director’s chair’—they give you the opportunity to make performance decisions on things on which the text is silent or ambiguous. A post of 350-400 words would be appropriate for the completion of each of these activities. You are required to select and complete four ‘In the Director’s Chair’ discussion activities over the course of the term, and to respond to at least one of your peers’ posts on four different plays. Your replies need not be on the same topic/play to which you responded. That is, you may post on one topic/play and reply to a peer’s post on another topic/play. The replies to others should add something to the discussions (that is, not merely register your agreement or disagreement with another’s submission.) Please ensure that any feedback you provide to your peers is respectful: as the late Wayne C. Booth put it, “Precise demonstration of truth is important but not as important as the communal pursuit of it. Put in terms of Kant’s categorical imperative, When addressing someone else’s ideas, your obligation is to treat them as you believe all human beings ought to treat one another’s ideas.” For full completion grades, you must complete four different topics on four different plays.
The Taming of the Shrew
Question: What’s in a kiss? From the wooing scene to the finale, kissing is a recurrent aspect of the interaction between Petruchio and Katherine. One of them is heard throughout the entire church. If you were directing the play, how would you stage the final kiss that the script calls for? When Petruchio says, after Katherine’s big speech in the finale, “Why, there’s a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate” (5.2.196), is there a kiss? If you agree that there should be one, what would you hope those kisses communicated to the audience? If you think that they do not kiss at this point, why would you stage the moment that way?
