Lloyd Leads Ladies in Globe's Shrew???

The gender divisions in the Globe's "Season of Regime Change" may have gone a little further than planned (See News, 3 Apr 2003). Contrasting the all-male productions of Richard II and Edward II are all-female productions of Richard III (with Kathryn Hunter in the title role) and The Taming of the Shrew (with Hunter playing Petruchio to Janet McTeer's Kate), the latter two both credited with direction by "master of play" Barry Kyle. Richard III, with Kathryn Hunter in the title role, opened last month as per normal, but change is apparently afoot in rehearsals for The Taming of the Shrew, which doesn't join the summer repertory until 10 August 2003. According to US industry bible Variety, Kyle "has quietly been replaced by - dare one use the word? - a 'mistress' of play" in the form of Phyllida Lloyd, the megabucks director of Mamma Mia! who earlier this year directed McTeer in The Duchess of Malfi at the National. In other Globe-related comings and goings, last year's staging of Twelfth Night will cross the pond in October, launching the theatre's first coast-to-coast North American. The production - and in particular Globe artistic director Mark Rylance, who played Olivia - was a hit with the critics, much to the chagrin of Rylance himself who hit back when awarded the prize for Best Shakespearean Performance at this year's Critics Circle Awards (See The Goss, 4 Feb 2003).

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