The woman on the $10 note goes on stage

That Bloody Woman
Directed by Kip Chapman
Auckland Theatre Company
SkyCity Theatre
Until June 26

Jesus got a musical about his later life, Evita Peron also got one and now out own Kate Sheppard has one, with That Bloody Woman by composer Luke Di Somma and playwright Gregory Cooper.

Sheppard is the woman on the $10 note who is credited with getting New Zealand woman the vote in 1893.

“That Bloody Woman” outlines her struggle to obtain universal suffrage as well as her work on prohibiting the sale of alcohol through the Temperance Union.

It isn’t Victorian music hall, though. Instead, it's a punk rock telling of her life with a four-piece manic band that injects a ferocious energy into the performance.

The use of the band is a clever way of  bringing a contemporary feel to the work, making connections between politics then and now, seeing Sheppard as a radical, upsetting the status quo, with unsettling and uncomfortable attitudes wanting to make fundamental changes, knowing she has to offend some people

As Kate Sheppard Esther Stephens is dynamic and powerful. She moves from restrained Victorian suffragette through to 21st century woman with a finely judged evolution aided by a cleverly changing wardrobe.  She tells her story forcefully with just an edge of stridency

She was supported by the polished cast of Cameron Douglas and Kyle Chuen who played her husband, lover, MPs and other assorted males along with Amy Straker and Phoebe Hurst as her friends and other feminists.

Her nemesis, King Dick Seddon played by Geoffrey Dolan, gives an impressive account of the great politician. The two of them engage in some fiery interchanges which tell of the social and political divisions of the time divisions as well as their clashing personalities.

The band of Andy Manning, Tim Heeringa, Hannah Elise and Cameron Burnet produced a powerful sound – their rigorous sound has an urgency and edginess

But there was a problem.

Early on, one of the cast asks the band to turn down the volume – presumably so the audience could hear something important. And it did – for two minutes.

Then as in many recent ATC musicals and some other shows, notably the Arts Festival's Nixon in China, the sound engineers appeared to get lost in their headsets and the balance between singers and music went in favour of the band.

Half the words of the songs were lost, meaning the narrative was sometimes unclear and we missed out on some shrewd songs and witty interchanges, which did a disservice to the performers and the production.

Tune into NBR Radio’s Sunday Business with Andrew Patterson on Sunday morning, for analysis and feature-length interviews.