Bard’s shrew set for an 80s-style taming
It won’t be gowns, collars and feathered-hats that fill the stage when the Young Auckland Shakespeare Company bursts on to the scene tonight with its debut production.
Instead the young cast will be rocking shoulder pads and spandex when they put an 80s spin on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.
The classic love story is being brought to life with style influences from punk rocker Siouxsie Sioux and soap opera Dynasty.
Among the retro landscape there’s a high-flying chief executive and single mother of two daughters who is juggling the feminist dream of a successful career with raising a family.
It is the first time the play’s director Rita Stone has modernised Shakespeare to this extent.
The tunes and threads might not be bringing back memories for a cast aged between 14 and 21 but they certainly are for their parents, Ms Stone says.
‘‘We’ve had parents digging out their old clothes and it will be a bit of a trip for them when they come and see it.’’
Ms Stone went to London in 2011 with the Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand to perform at the Globe Theatre before founding the company earlier this year.
Design student Sally Bol- linger, who plays the lead role of the shrew, has also performed at the Globe.
Treading the boards of the famous stage was a dream come true and an experience which she is bringing to this performance, she says.
Being part of such an experimental production is exciting, says Epsom Girls’ Grammar’s Geneva Norman.
‘‘I really love it. It’s so different and adding this whole other dimension to it makes it more complicated and fun to explore.’’