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Director Josie Rourke and designer Lucy Osborne visited Italy for inspiration for The Taming of the Shrew.
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Florence, Arno River photo by Lucy Osborne
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Josie Rourke: Although Lucy and I are very early in our process, we were hugely influenced by this trip to Florence and Padua. I had never visited either before (a disgrace when you consider that we're only separated by a thousand or so miles). The play has heavy Italian influences. Whether or not Shakespeare visited Italy is a moot point, but the characters reference their location, have Italian names and speak Italian, so we thought we'd better go and check it out.
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Lucy Osborne: We were enormously influenced by the architecture we found in both Florence and Padua, the narrow streets crammed on either side with shuttered doors and windows, the idea of the courtyards and the private worlds that might be on the other side of each one. It was also glorious to immerse ourselves in a modern Italian world of shiny chrome, rows of brightly colored Vespas and space-age espresso machines.
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Florence, photo by Lucy Osborne
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LO: The hustle of the busy streets, the beautiful, translucent and warm quality of light in the morning, the enormous weight of history held inside each thin stone pillar and piece of marble; sensual elements which have qualities that are resonant in The Taming of the Shrew.
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photo by red-scooter photography
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JR: We were very struck by the warmth and openness of the people. They are very un-English! Very in their bodies, present and alive.
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LO: The intensity of color was extraordinary, suddenly those Leonardo da Vinci landscapes make complete sense, and we fell hopelessly in love with Giotto!
JR: There is a lot of trading and bartering and dressing up in the play. We need to find the right palette both in terms of color and also movement for this. It is a funny and violent play and we want to reflect this in the world we present on stage.
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Giotto, The Lamentation,
the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua c 1305
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University of Padua, photo by Lucy Osborne
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LO: We went to look very specifically at the University, fascinated by the idea that this was, in the period of the play, the highest seat of learning for miles around. The sense that this young student, hoping to achieve great and pure things, can arrive in this chaotic town and have his world turned upside-down by a chance sighting of a beautiful girl felt completely possible in the courtyards around, where people-watching seemed to be a favorite pastime!
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