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- FAIRY FUN: Queen Titania (Holley Hornell) sends Puck (Ngahiriwa Rauhina) in Revenge of the Amazons.
REVIEW
AT first, the idea of a tango-dancing Oberon (played by Kahu Taiaroa) and a group of angry feminist players had me in doubt – but whether you love, hate, or can’t even begin to understand Shakespeare, Revenge of the Amazons is for everyone.
Whitireia Performance Centre did a stunning job of modernising Wellington playwright Jean Betts’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream without falling into the usual traps.
It threatened to backfire quickly. Attempting to update Shakespeare’s characters often ends up becoming clichéd and bordering on ridiculous. However, the young lovers were especially well played.
Lysander (Dwayne Kyle) was a wannabe rapper, Helena (Grace Morgan-Riddell) was a nerdy, insecure schoolgirl and Hermia (Jessica Walker-Hale) was as spoilt, moody, headstrong and annoyingly love-struck as any other teenage girl these days.
The actors’ expression and body language – which were wonderfully pantomimic – made the characters far easier to relate to, I imagine even for those who struggle to follow the Shakespearian type dialogue.
It is the feminist aspect, however, that really makes the play.
All of the character roles are swapped around.
The next thing you know Hippolyta (Hannah Lockyer) is an Amazon queen, who sees all men as inferior and has King Theseus (Regan Moyes) under her thumb, while Titania is commanding Puck to do her mischievous bidding while she plays magical mind games with her husband until he submits.
The players from the forest are a feminist group portraying “Labia’s Lament” (Labia, being the name of a girl and therefore thankfully taking a different direction).
They act like they think men act, yelling and ordering women about, and being violent and piggish and portraying their first periods and sexual encounters in the most laugh- (and cringe-) worthy way.
They even paid homage to one of NZ history’s most disagreeable men, with the line “cook me some eggs,” which, I don’t know about everyone else, but I saw as funny, clever, and totally relevant.
The women in the play are all so headstrong – and dare I say feisty - that when they all come together at the end it makes for hilarious entertainment as their views, men and fists clash at centre stage.
Puck, the playful sprite, is as charming as ever running around the stage dressed as The Flash, with a loveably foolish grin on his face as he messes with the love-lives of everyone else just for fun –who wouldn’t?
The theatre was intimate, the set was simple and covered in fairy lights, the actors used the space well, the dialogue was funny and relatable, the characters were fabulous, the feminists were…feminists, and the Queen was a King as far as Shakespearian gender roles go.
It was truly fantastic, funny and originally modern.
