Pauline "perfectly cast" as Shrew

As an exercise in sexism, it’s hard to beat Shakespeare’s comedy, The Taming of the Shrew in which a wild and hot tempered young woman, Katherine — the shrew of the title — is tamed by a man who marries and tortures her into submission.A modern and much lauded version of the play, by Rough Magic Theatre Company comes to the Town Hall Theatre from January 23 to 26. This production, which was first staged in 2006, won four awards at last year’s Irish Times Theatre awards, including Best Production.It has a superb cast, including Galway actress Pauline McLynn as Kate and Owen Roe as her domineering husband Petruchio.Shakespeare wrote The Taming of the Shrew in the late 1590s, and Rough Magic director Lynne Parker has set this production in 1960s Ireland. It is an Ireland full of gombeen men, live tango and loose morals.Parker’s decision might seen strange initially, but as Pauline observes, Ireland in the late 1950s and early 1960s was a place “when women were treated like cattle”. “You’d think he wrote it specifically for Ireland. People think we have done something to make him Irish, but we haven’t changed a word.”In the play, after Kate and Petruchio marry…..