The Taming of the Shrew

A major challenge for the Bell Shakespeare Company - or anyone staging Shakespeare's secondary works - is that today's audiences have difficulty taking the more melodramatic tragedies seriously (human pies in Titus Andronicus) and even more problems taking the darker comedies lightly (Shylock-baiting in The Merchant of Venice). The mere title of The Taming of the Shrew is enough to set PC alarm bells ringing; the full spectacle of Petruchio torturing his previously feisty wife into domestic subservience often prompts boos and walkouts. Fans of the Bard should be grateful to feminist icon Germaine Greer for her famous defence of the play, and to BSC associate director Marion Potts for this thought-provoking production, which distances the oppression by casting women in all the roles.

When the audience knows who's really wearing the pants, everything can lighten up, and many things previously shadowed by gender inequity show up in sharp-contrast relief. We are reminded that so much stereotypical male behaviour is acting, in the real world as much as on stage. We can enjoy Jeanette Cronin' swagger as Petruchio and even revel in the feeling she brings out that he is chuffed to be getting away with everything he tries, and that what he eventually gets is everything he wanted. We can believe from Lotte St Clair's adoring looks and warm tones as Kate that she truly loves him, even in her fit of husband-bashing. We realise she is accomodating him into a power structure that is sustainable, and is in reality more in her favour than he believes. This is the happiest marriage in Shakespeare, a reason to be cheerful that is normally overshadowed.

Also, the love for Kate from her patriarchal father Baptista, even as he wheels and deals dowries and daughters like used cars, is brought out in a majestic performance by Sandy Gore. Trophy bride Bianca reaches the comic heights of Muriel's Wedding thanks to Emily Rose Brennan swigging too many bottles of Veuve at the reception. At last we can laugh freely at the notorious final scene ("place your hands below your husband's foot"): Potts' ingenuity has rescued the comedy.

But she doesn't stop there. Having assembled this large gender-brightening spotlight, she swings it onto unexpected corners. Petruchio's servants are changed from standard-issue rough dullards into refined feminine confections. This brings out many thoughts, foremost the fact that Petruchio's physical abuse of his servants doesn't usually bother us nearly as much as his psychological abuse of the bride-to-be. When his coarse lackeys are played impeccably by Anna Houston and Luisa Hastings Edge like Cecily and Gwendolyn having cucumber sandwiches, we are surprised to discover our quadruple socio-sexual standard. In the other direction, the macho posturing in the subplot of three suitors covertly courting the young Bianca is made more transparent, and even the dirty old man Gremio (Vanessa Downing) becomes delightful.

The creative team equally delivers highly effective solutions. For Petruchio's much-anticipated crazy wedding garb, which usually sends costume designers into grotesqueries, designer Anna Trelogan makes an unsettling choice that keeps jaws gaping throughout the mad scene. Sound designer Max Lyandvert assembles a karaoke jukebox that gives exactly the right mood between casual and celebratory, from Bacharach to the title tune of 'A Man and a Woman'. The institutional wedding reception hall keeps our mind on the prize, and reminds us that we are watching humanity within formality, a set of people managing as they can with the social constraints of their time.

The company's admirable achievement is to take our minds away from deploring Elizabethan sexism, and to let us lighten up to the period's comedy, and to help us admit that much as we consider ourselves sensitised to gender issues we can still see an awful lot resembling our imperfect selves. Jason Catlett