Whangarei Boys' High School's latest theatrical offering, Revenge of the Amazons, is a risque, tongue-in-cheek parody of the second-wave feminism that abounded during the 60s and 70s, told as a revision of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Playwright Jean Betts must have been incredulous that Shakespeare's Hippolyta, supposedly a fierce Amazonian queen, would unquestioningly submit to marriage at her father's request. Instead, the ironic misandrist Hippolyta (Hamish McKechnie) whom the Whangarei Boys' cast put forth, dismisses her fiance Theseus' insistence on male rights as "not a terribly big issue right now" " poking fun at those who see the work of modern feminism as already done.
Meanwhile, Hermia (Austyn Mills) is being forced to marry Stan Hallett-Pullen's Demetrius, although she is really in love with Lysander, played by Joseph Savio. Dylan Mason-McKerrow is a wonderfully pathetic Helena, who is lovesick for Demetrius but wisely suspicious when he is suddenly bewitched and begins to return her affections.
True to Shakespeare's version, lovers and fairies are drugged and beguiled. This is tempered by serious messages: The shaming of women, double-standards in fidelity, the lack of support for single working mothers, as told by "The Fallopian Thespians" theatre company's play-within-the-play. This is the hilarious climax, and uncovers the unproductive but open-hearted shambles of an all-female theatre collective.
