A female shrew

I was repelled by Phyllida Lloyd's production of this troublesome, war-of-the-sexes, problem comedy.

Yet Janet McTeer's husky, hunky, genderswapping Petruchio, dripping enough testosterone to make some of her male predecessors seem ladylike by comparison, is a triumph of crossdressing and cross-being: the Globe has rounded off its fascinating season of single-sex casting for Shakespeare with an all-female production of The Taming Of The Shrew. But Miss Lloyd insists upon a reactionary, sadistic, male supremacist slant upon Petruchio's wooing and winning of the girl on the shelf, the angry Katherina.

Since the 1890s, directors and critics have ingeniously reinterpreted and softened the play's celebration of male power and the way Katherina is pummelled, humiliated and starved into obedience. The Shrew has been revalued as a dream, game, farce and psychological comedy of mutual attraction in which Katherina, surprised by love, merely pretends to be submissive.

Miss Lloyd does ensure her actresses, in male attire, moustaches and beards, make satirical fun of the way men walk, talk and misbehave-And in the complex subplot, Linda Basset and Amanda Haris deftly put aside femininity to make authentic man-servants, while Liza Hayden's pip-squeak boy delights. The wedding feast finale, though ostentatious in its displays of back and table-slapping male smugness, emphasises how these actresses vault the gender gap with relative ease.

The production's crude traditionalism proves rather disturbing. The allfemale casting is never exploited to give fresh perspectives. Miss Lloyd goes back to Elizabethan basics and shows how McTeer's Petruchio puts Kathryn Hunter's sullen little-girllost of a Katherina through a course of tough love to which she doggedly submits. Sado-masochism is the word for what goes on. McTeer boasts the inbuilt advantage of being well over six feet. And what a convincing sexy man, with the looks of a young Peter O'Toole, she makes, striding and swaggering butchly. In her knee-high boots she is broad-shouldered and boisterous, even urinating singlehanded to the manner born.

McTeer and Hunter, whose unconvincing Katherina resembles a sulky, emotionally retarded 10-year-old, are caught in an unabashed gaze of erotic desire. There is not a whiff of lesbianism, unless McTeer's misplaced lipstick does the trick. But after this impressive beginning, the production falters. It veers towards knockabout, particularly with Laura Rogers's Bianca, and rejects psychological exploration.

The loudest laugh is inspired by the silly spectacle of famished Katherina trying to steal a bone from Petruchio's dog. McTeer's Petruchio revels in physical prowess, pinioning and subduing Katherina, holding her upside down and frequently planting her on his knee. There she sits like a placid child, feeding her lover food.

The distinct infantilising of Katherina and her relationship with Petruchio is distasteful because so gratuitous, though McTeer makes the man's passion intensely real rather than mercenary. Worse, there is scarcely a flicker of pathos or desperation about Hunter's performance. Her final speech of submission is neither tongue-incheek nor submissive, and the last glimpse of the couple, happily arguingon equal terms in Italian, suggests The Taming Of The Shrew extols sado-masochism as a secure route to marriage. At least, though, McTeer triumphantly steps into what very few actresses are fit to wear - a big male role.

The Taming Of The Shrew
Richmond Theatre
The Little Green, TW9 1QJ