"You are come to me in happy time, / . . . for I have some sport in hand / Wherein your cunning can assist me much" says the Lord to the players in the Induction of The Taming of the Shrew. These seemingly simple words of welcome resonate, setting the context for the story about to unfold before us. We know that theatricality will be paramount to the story as the clever Induction pulls us into the drama through the story of Christopher Sly's duping. The Induction focuses our attention on the idea of appearances being deceiving, as well as on the importance of acting and role playing, but then it stops abruptly once The Taming of the Shrew proper begins. Why then take the time to introduce us to Sly and the merry jest of the Lord and his household? We can see the Induction as functioning in a number of ways (see the Induction commentary for more), but one of its most important purposes is to clue spectators into one of the play's main themes: role playing. In Shrew, Shakespeare provides disguises of all shapes and forms, from obvious physical disguises to more subtle psychological ones, and in the confines of a play within a play allows us to see a world which, not unlike our own, is teeming with role players.
The first and most obvious type of disguise employed in Shrew is the physical disguise. The notion of physical role playing is introduced at the very beginning of the play and continues throughout. When Christopher Sly falls asleep, the Lord decides to play a trick on him by having him carried to his manor and dressed as a nobleman. Lucentio, in Act I, Scene 1, assumes the role of Cambio, Bianca's tutor, while his servant, Tranio, disguises himself as Lucentio. Later, at the end of Act II, Scene 1, Tranio/Lucentio realizes he will need to present Vincentio, Lucentio's father, so he decides "suppos'd Lucentio/ Must get a father, call'd suppos'd Vincentio" (II.1, 407–408), and in Act IV, Scene 2, he finds a Pedant to play the part (72–121). We are introduced to yet another masquerader in Act III when Hortensio disguises himself as Litio, Bianca's music tutor. Aside from proper clothing, the only other thing these role players seem to need in order to ensure their masquerades is someone to corroborate their stories. Certainly the ease with which these players enact their roles suggests that as spectators (both inside and outside the theater) we need to be aware that nothing is as it seems and that we are continually surrounded by people who may just be acting a part in order to obtain a desired outcome.
