The saying goes, “Sometimes you’ve got to laugh to keep from crying.” A cursory Internet search attributes this quote to the actor Dennis Haysbert, but Madonna released a song called “Laugh to Keep from Crying” in 1981 and Tyler Perry wrote a play with the same title that was adapted  into a movie in 2009. Even the last two lines of Langston Hughes’ 1927 poem “Homesick Blues” goes, “To keep from cryin’ I opens my mouth an’ laughs.” Whatever its origin might be, the phrase is a firm fixture in popular culture and it feels even more pertinent today.  

The hardships of existence feel like they are getting harder and the injustices are just as palpable. We can’t escape the cost of living crisis, nor the adverse effects of climate change, gender inequality and racial discrimination. Every time you open a social media app there’s a daily dose of horrifying conflict to behold. Without the ability to raise a smile or choke out a chuckle with the aid of a joke in a comedy set, watching a show or reading a book, we might just drown in tears of despair.  

Laughing to keep from crying is good for our health too. It triggers the release of endorphins, “happy hormones,” which counter the “stress hormone” cortisol; it increases blood flow while working as a muscle relaxant. As Elle Woods says in Legally Blonde when defending her client on trial for murder: “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t shoot their husbands, they just don’t!” 

I adore this line because it’s an excellent use of science humour with dark connotations that exemplify how comedy can both lift our spirits and engage with thorny subjects. In that film’s case: murder. More recently, pop culture has been filled with stories that similarly wield this brand of wit but to a more deliberately intense effect. From Baby Reindeer’s disturbing portrayal of sexual assault and obsessive stalking to Rose Glass’s unapologetically sapphic revenge thriller Love Lies Bleeding using hilarious flourishes to grapple with domestic violence, organised crime and sexism. And who can forget Emma Stone’s Oscar-winning performance as Bella in Yorgas Lanthimos’ Poor Things? She’s an irreverent Frankenstein’s Monster seeking autonomy and sexual freedom after committing suicide and being reanimated with the brain of her newborn baby. It’s pretty gnarly if you take it too literally but the dark humour underscoring her globe-trotting escape from patriarchal control is a joy to behold. Uncomfortable comedies like these utilise this darkly delicious ingredient to whet audiences’ appetites as they digest taboo themes.  

William Shakespeare knew that better than most and his first comedy, The Taming of the Shrew, is still one of the most potent and polarising applications of dark humour. Most people have engaged with the play through adaptations like Cole Porter’s musical Kiss Me Kate and the 90s high school rom-com 10 Things I Hate About You, written by Legally Blonde’s Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith. I’m “most people.” The latter film was my entry point into the story of two sisters whose overbearing father forbids the younger sibling Bianca from dating until her “shrewish” older sibling Katherina does. Cue the scheming of two men hoping to secure Bianca’s affection by enlisting a hot Australian outsider to melt Kat’s Riot Girrl feminist heart. It’s a beloved reworking – with an iconic musical number – but admittedly one that strips back and dilutes the play’s more harrowing elements of misogyny and psychological abuse. 10 Things caters to more light-hearted Hollywood sensibilities by making the Patrick/Petruchio character played by Heath Ledger a rugged Prince Charming rather than an unscrupulous antagonist.  

In the original play-within-a-play, Petruchio’s actions towards Kate are so sadistic and abusive that the debate around Shakespeare’s intentions has been enormously divided. Is the play misogynist or a critique of misogyny? Is he asking you to laugh at the women being subordinated or is he satirising gender politics to show just how discriminatory they were towards women? It’s all in the dramatic interpretation. For some, including the Globe’s The Taming of the Shrew Director Jude Christian, Shakespeare is doing the latter. He’s using dark humour in a “conscious and deliberate way,” to expose the sexist horrors of his time. 

“It’s billed as a romantic comedy but as an audience member you’re going to be going, ‘it doesn’t feel very romantic,’ Christian tells me. “It feels like this sort of twisted incel idea of what romance is in a way that feels deeply toxic and painful. He’s writing about this kind of gaslighting, abusive, cruel, coercive relationship.” 

Watching her Globe production, it’s clear that the taming of Katherina is anything but tame. Christian’s direction exquisitely exaggerates the playfulness in Petruchio’s psychological abuse and the light-hearted complicity of the other players so that audiences recognise that Katherina is being held hostage in an abnormal romantic comedy space resembling a colourful 90s children’s TV show. Shakespeare is, “doing this weird, provocatively zany thing with it where he’s dressing the whole thing up like a funny rom-com,” says Christian, “and presenting it to the audience as if he’s going ‘Hey, guys, laugh? Come on. It’s funny, right?'” 

A backlash against #MeToo has no doubt contributed to the popularity of misogynists like Andrew Tate, the public shaming of women and, according to a new report  from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, violence against women becoming a national emergency. 400 years later, The Taming of the Shrew feels more relevant than ever. “It’s an important time to put it on stage to ask uncomfortable questions about why these ideas are so prevalent in our society,” says Christian. “Why are we so keen to see a woman pilloried and humiliated and punished and put back in her box?” 

Dark humour might not fix these societal ills but it’s an excellent tool to unpack those sentiments. With a play like Shrew, it just might laugh truth to power. 

The Taming of the Shrew plays in the Globe Theatre until 26 October. 

FINIS.