Q&A with Penny Ashton, comedienne and actor behind The Tempestuous

New Zealand actor and comedienne Penny Ashton is putting the spotlight on Shakespeare in her latest show, The Tempestuous.

New Zealand actor and comedienne Penny Ashton is bringing her latest literary influenced solo musical The Tempestuous: A Shrew’d New Comedy by Will Shakespeare and Penny Ashton to town.

Penny 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 Penny arrives in town, Ilona Hanne caught up with her to find out more about this latest show, which Penny 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.

A stroppy spinster called Princess Rosa is one of the several characters Penny Ashton will play in her upcoming one-woman show, The Tempstuous.

Shakespeare certainly created some memorable female roles, but women didn’t play them did they?

Yes, he is responsible for some epic female characters - Lady Macbeth, Juliet, Beatrice, Portia. Which is why making boys portray them is even more perplexing. But actresses have long been considered slatterns and strumpets so yet again men were removing temptation from sight as opposed to, you know, controlling themselves. Gender bending is massive in Shakespeare, there’s so much cross-dressing it can get downright confusing. In As You Like It, Rosalind dresses as a man to flirt with Orlando, which was slightly illegal at the time.

Given how prolific a playwright Shakespeare was, how did you settle on what style of story you would tell from all the genres he covered?

I knew it had to be a comedy. Because it is me, and I have been making people laugh since I knocked over the mouse hole in the ballet recital when I was 4.

So which of the bard’s plays have influenced this show?

Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew (it had to be good for something), Much Ado About Nothing, The Merchant of Venice, As you Like it, Midsummer Night’s Dream and heaps of Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. This means if you know all those plays there’s a lot for you, but if you don’t know Shakespeare from a sow’s ear it doesn’t matter as the story is brand new. It also includes squeezy buzzards and The Great Sicily Tart Baketh Off for general amusement.

Without ruining it or using too many words - what exactly is The Tempestuous about?

Sicily’s beloved King Enzo is dead. Now Princess Rosa, a stroppy spinster, must navigate the tempestuous waters of belching stepfathers, lusty suitors, popping cod pieces and menopausal witches to face her destiny. A one woman musical of sword fighting, romance and puffed bull’s pizzles.

And after this, what’s next in your plans?

Well it’s back to Austen for Sense and Sensibility but the next solo I have planned is a one woman live cabaret show; Show us your Glitz. The plot is that I am staging a TV comeback special as a formerly famous lounge singer and then I will play each guest in this variety special. So it’s actually a return to my style of cabaret show I did back before 2013. I have been planning this for over 10 years but figured I should be older, and I just turned 50 so achievement unlocked!

The details:

What: The Tempestuous

When: Rotorua - April 5, 7pm, Sir Howard Morrison Centre.

Stratford: April 6, 7.30pm, TET King’s Theatre.

Tickets via ticketmaster for Rotorua, eventbrite for Stratford.

Ilona Hanne is a Taranaki-based journalist who covers breaking and community news from across the region. She has worked for NZME since 2011.