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Theatre review Essay The lighting for most of the play was moderately bright with foot lights lighting the stage, and several overhead lights as well. The exception was Petruchios house, which was quite dim to show how different it was from what Kate was used to, and showing how miserable she was. Most scenes were broadly lit instead of using spotlights to highlight individual characters, which I was quite surprised about, One exception was outside the tavern where the men were celebrating Biancas engagement, when a spotlight was used to show the merchant pretending to be Lucentios father looking out from a window. Lighting was s also used for several special effects. One example was the storm outside Petruchios house, which was very effective, and also an amazing contrast compared to the scene with Bianca in the garden, which had a completely different mood that was well conveyed by the lighting used in both scenes. Sound effects were also used to convey the emotions in each scene, though not used abundantly, but were key to the scene, for example, wedding bells for the church scene and thunder and lightening, which was very atmospheric. There was music from the orchestra before the play started, which set the mood, and also put the play in context because it was sort of old fashioned instrumentalist music, which showed that the play was going to be the traditional version instead of a more contemporary updated version. There was also background music sometimes, but nothing too obvious, and only a few bars at a time, with no real impact on the scene except to add to the surroundings, rather than narrate them, so they didnt have any particular tone, i. e. hopeful or sad. The lack of songs seemed strange to me because Ive only previously been used to seeing musicals performed but the cast conveyed the emotions adequately anyway. The costumes in the play were also of a very high quality, even though each character only had one outfit. Nevertheless they showed a lot about the personalities of each role. For example, Bianca wore a pretty yellow dress to show how girly she was, and that she cared about her appearance while Kat wore a rough looking one. Gremios clothes were probably the most affluent, with robes that were trimmed of fur and a lot of gold jewellery, which supported the fact that he was the richest of Biancas suitors, Gremio retired to his moneybags Things like this showed aspects of their personalities. I could tell that clothes were important in those times because they showed who a person was. A case that shows this is when Lucentio swaps clothes with his servant. , so that anyone who saw them would know instantly which one was the master. Ive seen things like this in other performances, for example Les Miserables and often other pre 1900 plays.