No matter what arrangement you’ve worked out with your beloved, it’s unlikely that Kate and Petrucchio in “The Taming of the Shrew” will serve as role models for a good marriage. At least, they shouldn’t. The two lead characters in what might be called Shakespeare’s cruelest comedy are more S&M than R&J. Petrucchio mercilessly beats Kate, drags her by the hair, starves her, deprives her of sleep and breaks her spirit into submission.

“Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, thy head, thy sovereign,” Kate finally advises other women in her famous subservience speech, arguably Shakespeare’s least friendly lines toward women.

The victimization is so unbearable that one critic suggested the curtains be drawn on the play forever.

Yet directors have an ongoing and curious fascination with the script. Some have seen it as farce, emphasizing the comedy. Others play it straight with occasional winks during the nasty parts. And still others take the violence seriously, wrestling the cruelty-is-good-for-the-victim conundrum right to the mat.

But in the end, the question is always the same: How do any of us make sense of Shakespeare’s mystifying meanness and misogyny?

For Julia Whitworth, whose new production of “Shrew” will mark the eighth annual gala celebration on July 5 and then runs through July 8 at the Stonington Opera House, the answer came in setting the play in a women’s prison and by borrowing stylistic techniques from noir films in the women-in-prison genre of the 1950s.

Except for one man, the cast is made up entirely of women, or, in Whitworth’s world, inmates and prison staff who put the newcomer Kitty through an unorthodox initiation rite that involves acting out Shakespeare’s violent play. Kitty becomes Kate, and the other actors – all of whom have developed private back stories about why their characters are in prison in the first place – take on the rest of the roles through cross-dressing and performing more than one part. The audience won’t know those back stories, but the girls-gone-bad device creates a frightening and slippery world behind bars.

The action is high-speed and physical, something between the Three Stooges and “Cool Hand Luke,” but with women.

“This play is more of a farce than I realized,” said Whitworth, a veteran director at the Opera House. “As a feminist, there’s something incredibly uncomfortable about that. At the core is a horrific story but there’s something farcical, too, which makes me wonder if Shakespeare was intervening in the gender norms more than I gave him credit for. I don’t think we should give him credit for deconstructing it, but he’s certainly reflecting the culture around him and reflecting on it. When push comes to shove, Kate demonstrates the behavior of a woman who has been subdued. It’s imperative that the violence in the play be unflinching. I’m not interested in exploiting violence for violence’s sake, but I have no interest in romanticizing violence either.”

By removing the type of abuse most commonly reported in headlines and hidden behind bedroom doors – men hurting women – Whitworth hopes to expose new territory about the complications and intricacies of power relationships.

This is not the first time, of course, that “Shrew” casting has tilted toward one gender. Originally, the play featured Shakespeare’s all-male company. More recently, an all-women cast performed the work at the Globe Theatre in London in 2003, and Propeller, an all-male troupe in England, recently wrapped up a nearly yearlong international tour of a highly praised “Shrew,” which Whitworth caught in New York City.

Although she hopes her interpretation will yield insights into the wily world of power politics, she already is breaking new ground by framing the traditional script, to which she has made minor cuts and changes, with a prison theme.

She also sees connections between the play’s endorsement of violence and current events.

“This is a play that has torture at its center,” said Whitworth. “And we’re doing it at a time when our national leaders are saying torture is OK, especially in prisons.”

Opera House co-artistic director Judith Jerome added that the production, like Shakespeare’s original work, is a variation of a well-known story: the unruly woman who must be tamed to be acceptable.

The story may be harsh by contemporary standards, but Shakespeare gives directors, actors and audiences reason to return again and again to even the most perplexing plots.

“Shakespeare did what we all now do: take an old text and breathe new life into it,” said Jerome. “These stories belong so deeply to us. They are so ‘ours’ in the Western world. We all know them, and they are beautifully told in Shakespeare. So to work with these rich readings that so belong to us and re-envision them is deeply satisfying.”

And, one might add, deeply disturbing.

Opera House Arts will present “The Taming of the Shrew” as a gala benefit 5 p.m. Thursday, July 5, (tickets $30), and at 7 p.m. Friday, July 6, and Saturday, July 7, and 2 p.m. Sunday, July 8, (tickets $15-25) at the Stonington Opera House. For information, visit www.operahousearts.org or call 367-2788.