Penny Ashton hates writing.
In fact, she will usually find something, anything else to do. However, there is a problem. She is good at it.
Her one- and two-women shows are sell-outs and she was recently commissioned to write a play, a take on Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, for Christchurch’s Court Theatre.
"I’m quite good at it. Again I didn’t know I was going to be, but I’m quite good at giving it a go and seeing what happens."
It seems to be her motto in life. While she may have changed directions a few times in her life, there was never any question that whatever she did, it would involve performance.
So while she gave up the dance dreams of her childhood for improvisation theatre and then studying drama and doing comedy, Ashton discovered her niche when she came up with a winning formula — rewriting a news story in the style of an author using classical music which she adds words to.
"The test was, can I write a story that people are interested in and can I play all the characters convincingly? I’ve always been a character actor as I’ve always been the frog not the swan."
Her first attempt Austen Found, The Undiscovered Musicals of Jane Austen, is still touring 15 years later and, according to Dunedin theatre maven Terry MacTavish, it has not lost any of its spark.
"There are many delightful serendipitous moments as these clever actors interpret the narrative, seizing on every opportunity for irony and naughty innuendo."
Ashton says her earlier efforts at stand-up poetry did not go down so well, but literature combined with her love of everything period works perfectly.
"Once, I was walking in a cinema and saw a big frock out of my eye and thought what’s that? I realised I’m such a period drama fan."
She is also a fan of comedy and the concept allowed her to make people laugh.
"I like to send people away laughing, smiling and feeling happy. I want to uplift people. And I’m using bleak times in the Victorian era to be more cheery."
Since Austen Found, Ashton, who also MCs, is a social commentator, television presenter, voice-over artist and wedding celebrant, has written Promise and Promiscuity in 2013 and Olive Copperbottom in 2017, the latest show she is bringing to Dunedin.
She discovered just how funny English writer Charles Dickens could be when reading The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, the author’s third novel, first published as a serial in 1838. Its comic character names and the theatrics of the "infant phenomenon" appealed.
"I was totally laughing, he takes the piss. I love the characters in Dickens."
It meant she could have fun coming up with names for her characters such as Fanny Purchase for the prostitute, Betsey Sozzle, the one-eyed tavern keeper, villain Millicent Moneybags and Mrs Sourtart who runs the orphanage.
She also upped the challenge for herself, taking on 15 characters for this show, including the orphaned Olive, compared with nine in Promise and Promiscuity, although some are very fleeting such as Mrs McShortbread, a Scottish pub owner.
"It’s an epic sweeping story. While Promise and Promiscuity takes place over a month, Olive Copperbottom is over 17 years and goes all over the country instead of one place."
Having the energy to carry a show and also transform herself into multiple characters comes naturally.
"I’ve always had that energy. You get very energised by the audience. After a show you can be very energised as long as the audience has laughed.
"It’s like the almost pantomimey improviser in me that reacts to the noise in the crowd."
Part of that ability comes from her background in improvisation theatre.
"To be able to react on the fly has totally enhanced all my art forms."
In Dunedin, the 100-member audience will join her on stage for the entire show.
"It’s the best way to be on the big stage with no pressure of filling the big stage except the [actual] stage. I really love that theatre; it’ll be delightful to be there."
It does not faze her to perform so closely with an audience as she has performed in all sorts of venues over the years, from a lecture theatre in Edinburgh to the unknowns of fringe festival venues around the world.
"You get used to adapting. But I’ve not had many with the stunning backdrop like that [the Regent]. There is something about old theatres, some undefinable magic you get standing on stage and looking out."
Another important aspect of the shows for Ashton is the ability to bring in issues that affect women in often wry, sarcastic or witty ways. Her first couple of shows have a thread about emancipation and women being able to do what what they like while Copperbottom deals with misogyny and women having autonomy over their bodies.
"I like to make political points with these shows about how far we’ve come and how far we’ve got to go."
Her newest show The Tempestuous, which she describes as a "Shakespearean frolic", follows 13 characters including Princess Rosa, a stroppy spinster, and is set in Sicily after its king dies and the queen remarries.
"There’s a lot of Merchant of Venice, Hamlet ... and menopausal witches, Bozo the Clown. There’s lots of audience shouting and getting involved."
The idea for the menopausal witches characters may have come out of the Showy Ovaries podcast Ashton hosted during Covid. The project gave her something to do during lockdown as she interviewed high-profile New Zealand women about their menopause experiences in an effort to find out what she was about to experience.
"It was something to do and I got to speak to some amazing women. I also had Sense and Sensibility to write then too."
Next up she is planning on bringing her "worlds closer together" by writing a theatre show about a cabaret performer who goes through all the characters she has played over the years.
TO SEE:
Olive Copperbottom: A Dickensian Tale of Love, Gin and the Pox, Regent Theatre, Dunedin, December 15-16
