The moment has long passed since productions of The Taming of the Shrew had women running shrieking from theatres. However, it still requires a shrewd director to make this comedy, which can come across like curdled milk, seem palatable.
Douglas Rintoul, a young director of enormous promise, almost pulls it off here with a production that is as eye-catching as it is intelligent. Gemma Fripp's design of Arabic-influenced arches and twisted palms juts out crossways over the stage. Rintoul, too, comes at the play sideways. His setting of the play in a Muslim (but not fundamentalist) society is not only topical but also dramatically cute and intellectually convincing.
Here, when Katia Caballero's spirited - if not 100% proof - Katherina falls down in front of Jay Villiers's sunny, bear-like Petruchio, it is as an obedient wife within the laws of Islam. The way he kisses her hand and raises her up indicates that he too is bound by laws that mean he owes a duty to his wife to honour and protect her.
This is made even more clear in the way that Baptista is shown to have failed in his duties as a father and leader of his household in favouring his youngest daughter Bianca over her elder sister Katherina. Katherina here is the unhappy product of a dysfunctional family, and Petruchio offers the therapy that she needs.
Rintoul's confident production has a lovely comic edge as it conveys all these ideas - not by imposing them upon the play, but through clever use of Shakespeare's sharp-eyed observations on the complexities of human nature. The acting is also the best I've seen in a classical play at this address for some time. What the evening lacks, however, is enough sustained energy to see it through to its conclusion. The momentum slows after the interval and does not pick up until the beautifully realised and detailed final scene, which recaptures the edge of the first half.
That second-half dip is, I suspect, less a product of Rintoul's failure of nerve than of the constraints of limited rehearsal time. A pity, because, like Katherina herself, this is almost a cracker.
· Until September 28. Box office: 01722 320333.
