Unleashing Shakespeare

• Published date: 11 April 2024
• Publication title: Guardian, The

Ashton is well known to theatre lovers, having regularly toured her other works Promise and Promiscuity and Olive Copperbottom, performing them more than 700 times in 100 cities and towns in six countries over the past 10 years

Before Ashton arrives in town, Ilona Hanne caught up with her to find out more about this latest show, which she debuted last year and exactly what audiences can expect.

Your previous shows, Promise and Promiscuity and Olive Copperbottom, put Jane Austen and Charles Dickens under the spotlight — what made you put William Shakespeare next on your “taking lots of artistic licence” list?

What better way to subvert the fact women were banished from the Elizabethan stage than by one woman playing ALL the parts?

And when you say all the parts, you really mean that don’t you — exactly how many parts do you play in this show? And why — why not have some other actors play some of the roles?

I play more than 10 parts in this show. Why a one-woman show — well, if you were to sit down and do a budget for more than one actor on tour you will instantly understand why. I am directing my adaptation of Sense and Sensibility at Circa in Wellington this year in July, which is very exciting, but my main source of income will no doubt remain the one I have complete control over. Economics is a powerful motivator — it’s why I now sell very lovely tea towels after the shows too.

When it comes to roles in Shakespeare, Dickens and many other writers, women didn’t exactly get a great deal in characterisation did they — does that irk you?

From the dawn of time, women have been portrayed as mothers, lovers or slags. Accessories to the male protagonist — the scabbard to the sword. The woeful stats around the amount of female dialogue in Oscar-winning movies shows this up starkly. So yeah, it irks the ever living feck out of me. This is why all my shows have female protagonists. They are women’s stories, they still are romantic because I love a good pash and a happy ending ... but women are at the front. It is changing though ... Barbie blew the popular myth that women’s stories don’t sell right out of the bubble bath. Not a lot of Oscar recognition though — bombs were more popular. When it comes to traditional roles, women in Shakespeare were portrayed as evil if they turned their backs on motherhood — as a happily barren woman myself I would have probably been burned at the stake.

Shakespeare certainly created some memorable female...