TARA LOFT TAKES TO THE STAGE
Copyright 2001 Associated Newpapers Ltd.

[ September 7th 2001 ]

Shakespeare meets Tomb Raider tonight when a deeply unorthodox interpretation of the Bard's works opens at Croydon's Warehouse Theatre. Seven of Shakespeare's most famous female characters, including Juliet, Ophelia and Cleopatra, take to the stage in Lady Macbeth Rewrites The Rulebook.

But instead of being armed with some of the finest lines ever written, these hardcore heroines are wielding a far more direct weapon - swords. Transferring from the Edinburgh Festival, this new play was written by Royal Shakespeare Company fightarranger, Renny Krupinski - and it shows.

Krupinski, 46, said: "I've always written and I teach stage-fighting, so when I came across lots of very good female fighters who had nothing to do on stage, I realised it would be a good idea to do an all-female fight show."

This was Krupinski's inspiration for his plot about Lady Macbeth's determination to wipe out the Bard's other tragic heroines and emerge with all of the author's best lines - even encountering a character tellingly called Tara Loft.