Here are some questions to consider for your position papers on Dennis Huston's "Enter the Hero: the Power of Play in The Taming of the Shrew," and Michael Siberry's "Petruccio [sic] in The Taming of the Shrew."

You can pursue your paper in any way you'd like, but use it to address, directly or indirectly, one or more of these possible topics/questions/concerns. You don't need to answer any of these questions head-on, although you may do so. You might address one or more of these topics as you discuss some aspect of each article that most interests, bothers, excites, or confuses you. Be sure to think critically about each article and be ready to show some difficulty in the assumptions, what gets left out of the discussion, some twist in the argument, some bias in interpretation, or unsupported contention.

Address one issue, question, or topic for each article, and make sure your paper touches on, answers, or deals in some way with one or more of these questions or the topic they point toward.

Huston Questions

1. What are the various types of playing in The Taming of the Shrew that Huston identifies, and what does he propose various players play with and who on. Note how Huston includes Shakespeare's games with theatrical conventions and audience expectations, the Lord's games with Sly and servants, the players' play, Petruchio's playing with roles, etc.

2. Huston's essay has an implicit thesis in it: play is powerful and playing in and through The Taming of the Shrew is powerful. What kinds of power does he believe play exerts? What powers do various players achieve and how do they use those powers, in The Taming of the Shrew?

3. What views of Katharina as a player does Huston seem to ignore or not recognize? What views of Petruchio does he seem to ignore or not recognize?

4. How do Huston's theories about play -- which are mostly implicit -- use, adapt, differ from, compare with theories about play we have seen from other readings?

5. Why does Huston have a long introduction about the difficulties of classifying The Taming of the Shrew and about its uses of older traditions? What are the implications and goals of his article that become clear when you consider how long he spends showing how the play acts like but does not fulfill the various characteristics of various types of drama: Old Comedy, New Comedy, Romantic Comedy, etc.?

6. What is the point of Huston comparing The Taming of the Shrew to a fairy tale and noting its uses of fairy tale conventions, motifs, structures, and ideas? What are fairy tale heroes and heroines, incidents, obstacles and solutions related to uses and powers of play?

Siberry Questions

1. How does Michael Siberry's discussion of his playing of Petruchio in a production of The Taming of the Shrew for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1995 introduce ideas of play? What are his implicit theories about what is play, or what happens when people (Petruchio, Grumio, Katharina) play?

2. If Huston argues that, through play, Petruchio teaches Katharina how to overcome her isolation, unhappiness, and how to become a fully adult, spontaneous multifaceted person, what does Michael think Petruchio does with Katharina? Does he see Katharina teaching Petruchio anything, and how?

3. What might Siberry tell Huston about how the interpretations of Petruchio and Katharina in his show match up to, or differ from Huston's interpretations and theories?

4. What assumptions and goals did Siberry's acting company have that led them to travel a different direction, in their play, than Huston pursues, in his essay?

5. Was Siberry's play ultimately a comedy, in your view? How did his play arouse and thwart our expectations and desire for romantic comedy, for a happy ending composed out of marriage, festivity, reformed society around a wedding or festive celebration? How does the failure of the happy ending both frustrate or educate us about those expectations for comedy, for mutuality, for equality, for truth and respect? What would be the pleasure or satisfaction audiences gain from Siberry's play?