The Taming Of The Shrew, York Shakespeare Project

Boys will be girls and girls will be boys and the immortal words will be said by Ali Borthwick's Petruchio to John Sharpe's Katherina.

This role reversal is all part of director Paul Toy's plan to give the play a makeover, in which the main male parts will be played by women and vice versa, tonight and tomorrow at Pocklington Civic Arts Centre and next week at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York.

Paul explains his thinking: "In The Taming Of The Shrew, Shakespeare deals with marriage and the relationship between wife and husband. The views expressed, particularly in Katherina's final speech, were strongly patriarchal, even in Shakespeare's time, and have caused many modern actresses and actors and audience members - both male and female - unease and concern.

"So for this production we have cast men in the role of the women and women in the role of male lovers," says Paul.

He is in charge of the second York Shakespeare Project production after being assistant director for the Millennium Mystery Plays in York Minster and musical director for the project's first production of Richard III last November.

"Reading through the play, it was the last speech that prompted me. I was thinking I don't believe a woman would say 'You can walk all over me'. It comes right at the end, it is the longest speech by far, and you can't throw that away by undermining it yet I found it difficult purely accepting it at face value."

Paul also had decided he would use Christopher Sly's induction to the play. "That sets the story of Petruchio and Katherina as a play within a play, a play performed at one distance removed, so I thought why not extend the performance element. Already there's a page dressed up as a women, so I've just taken it further," he says.

"But it's not a straight swap for all the roles, only the lovers. We do still have men playing men and women playing women in the other parts."

Paul is seeking to emphasise the contrast between the verbal and the visual in the play. "This way you don't have to accept what they say as being true, as you can immediately see the difference between what they say and what you see," he says.

"By having a strapping man say Katherina's words, it is not real and not naturalistic, so it gives the audience a jolt and makes the play double edged."

Paul's casting decision and the timing of the production could not be more topical. "It must be the summer of The Shrew, although York Shakespeare Project couldn't have known that when choosing the play last August," he says.

"In a fortnight's time down at The Globe, in London, The Taming Of The Shrew will be done by an all-female cast with Janet McTeer as Petruchio and Kathryn Hunter as Katherina, and Mark Rylance will be doing an all-male Richard II," he says.

Meanwhile, Gregory Doran - with whom Paul worked when Doran directed the Millennium Mystery Plays in York - will be staging The Taming Of The Shrew and its contemporary sequel, The Woman's Prize or The Tamer Tamed.

"That play, dating from 1615, was like a Taming Of The Shrew 2; it was saying you can't treat women like that, you have to treat them better, so there was a come-back, a debate, even then about how marriages should be conducted," Paul says.

He did not advertise his intentions in the lead-up to the auditions, instead explaining his plans when holding individual audition sessions.

"It's interesting that the women were much more for it; the men were more suspicious," he says. "Equally interesting is that at committee level, my proposal got through only on a majority vote, but the two people who were uneasy are now both in the cast and very happy with it after the initial gulp in the throat."

The Taming Of The Shrew, York Shakespeare Project, Oak House, Pocklington Civic Arts Centre, tonight at 7.30pm, tomorrow at 2.30pm and 7.30pm; tickets £5, concessions £4, on 01795 301547 or at the door. Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee; tickets £7, concessions £6, from York Tourist Information Centre, tel 01904 621756, Ticket World, 01904 644194, or at the door.

Updated: 11:35 Friday, June 13, 2003