"She should be more like Bianca? She can't be more like Bianca! Bianca isn't like anything!"

Thursday, cigarette #2

My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband's foot...

The Shakespeare Project (previous installments here and here) read Taming of the Shrew on Monday, and it was a debacle. The women squared off against the men (plus one female traitor to the sisterhood) over whether Kate's speech at the very end was meant in earnest. Our resident Englishwoman (codename "Heavily Annotated"), who had the part of Katherine, played it like a battered woman; the Chairman insisted that Kate, when she gives that speech, should seem "happy."

Had Housemate Dara (Hermione to my Paulina, Doll to my Quickly) been there, we would have had a fair fight. As it was, the feminists were outnumbered. Still, there is such a thing as moral victory...