Jeanette Cronin and Lotte St Clair feature as Petruchio and Kate in Marion Potts' not-so-classic, all-female take on Shakespeare's classic romantic comedy.

Bell Shakespeare's new gender-twisting production of The Taming Of The Shrew will see women playing men, dressed as men in conflict with women playing women, dressed as women.

In tackling what is often labeled Shakespeare's most chauvinistic play, the politics of marriage are under the microscope in this comical look at the dubious sexual politics of Kate and Petruchio's Padua.

Is Petruchio nothing more than a vain, uncaring, greedy chauvinist who treats marriage as an act of domination and attempts to train his wife as he would a hawk?

Is Kate a spirited woman who is cowed into abject submission by the violence of a blatant bully? Does Kate start out as an independent and vital woman, only to become a Stepford wife?

"By this reckoning he is more shrew than she."

Contemporary audiences can determine if they will rescue Shakespeare and Petruchio from the charge of male chauvinism and accept that The Taming Of The Shrew is the tale of two eccentric rebels who must fight and challenge each other before they will admit to being deeply kindred spirits.

Jeanette Cronin, who received a Sydney Theatre Award Nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Holding The Man, is in the blue corner as the mercurial and witty Petruchio.

Lotte St Clair -Homebody/Kabul for B Sharp at Belvoir, STC's Macbeth and All Saints - is in the red corner as the challenger, Kate, in this fast and fiery examination of the psychology of relationships.

DIRECTOR MARION POTTS Set & Costume Designer - Anna Tregloan, Lighting Designer - Paul Jackson, Sound Designer - Max Lyandvert