This theatrical spectacle lies at the heart of a massive network of supportive effort aimed at uniting this country’s youth with the exciting possibilities of personal working in the revived Globe Theatre in London. The public and private sectors work impressively together in an effort that has already taken about 500 young Kiwis through a worldwide process and fed them with amazing success into the demanding business of theatre, both here and abroad.

It is invidious and time-consuming to set it all out here but it’s manifest that our theatre royalty in the likes of Dawn Sanders and Bill Sheat (and many others) continue to take an active interest along with boatloads of academics, clubs and trusts, professional theatres and the Ministry of Youth Development. The Minister of Finance himself (wearing his culture hat) is in the audience and is pleasingly engaged both during and after.  I hope that covers the general background if, like the show itself, only in miniature.

The emerging actors have had a matter of a few days to cobble together demanding 40 minute performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (a comedy), Macbeth (a tragedy) and Henry V (a durable patriotic warhorse). Overall, they are eminently successful in giving us the gist of each while our own theatrically-trained minds (we hope) fill out the gaps. Principal roles are passed around so, for example, there are more Macbeths in that extract than there were James Bonds in the first Casino Royale movie!

An additional incentive to concentration of effort, is the brutal challenge of strutting your stuff in Parliament’s Legislative Council Chamber, an environment that is close to being anti-theatre. The Hall was designed for political bullfighting. It would be one of the direst areas in which I have ever witnessed performances of the Bard. It is long with a single northern door leading up to the Speaker’s chair area. It has the acoustical qualities of a laminated brick. The seats are set in two sets of parallel lines through the length of the hall. This leaves the cast to perform in an equally long trench between the two sets of unraked seating. This guarantees impossible sight lines and hearing as the cast are constantly turning around to address the gathering; all akin to the swooping trombone section of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

The ensemble is, throughout, compelled to march in from the right and hare off through available doors. The modern day theatrical dimensions of built up height levels, lighting touches that redefine stage areas and introduce complex visual angles are shut off. Just another challenge I suppose and one that is readily taken up.

Furthermore, by dint of a supreme irony the only sources of warming acoustic power are in the public gallery one floor up. In other words the choicest speaking areas are where anyone talking there was ‘out of order’ and ejected from the building.

I will leap, for a moment, to the end of the evening. After the performance part of the event the massed band of actors comes together to sing two songs with added actions and sign language; all topped off with a splendidly unique haka. Therein, they demonstrate that working in theatre is one of the greatest of human endeavours. They have come from all parts of the country to hammer out thoughtful performances. They are more than just a performing team. They have become a band of brothers and sisters. They are forever changed. Theatre does that to you.

And it shows in the three chosen pieces. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Terence Crawford, is performed in night attire devised by student costumier River Charteris-Wright and with musical transitions devised by student composer Emma Burgess. The preposterous-but-sublime merging of the marriage aspiration and thespian hopes of fairies and ‘mechanicals’ is achieved with some panache. It produces sincere laughter and other much desired responses from the audience.

The dreamlike qualities of Shakespeare’s first effective comedy are realised in a ho-hum space woefully devoid of its own magic. The transformation of the lively and expressive Dee van Wel’s rendition of Bottom into the lumpier and stunned-mullet version (well delivered by Connor Norris) is a highlight of the truncated piece; one that is hard enough to pull off in the play’s entire format let alone when severely edited.

The entire tone then changes with the Scottish play: Macbeth. This is directed by James Cain with the same tyro costumiers and composers (who enliven all the pieces). The accent in the reduced version is stronger on the alarming political machinations and horrific killings while the demonic aspects are lessened. There are four actors playing Macbeth, three of them women.

Here one must pause and say that moving key parts around is little bit like those halcyon days when up-and-coming all Blacks played trials as Possibles v Probables. Everyone wanted to shine across the range before being rudely told to hand their shirt to another up-and-coming in order to give them a go.

I think Takunda Muzondiwa is a spiffing Macbeth while wearing her latest Thane hat. Her eyes lusciously sweep the auditorium with telling ambition. However, she delivers the measured “if it is done when tis done” lines with equal overt relish (which she does so well) only to be perplexingly rebuked by the then-operative Lady Macbeth for lacking vigour. Just another limitation on the format, alas.   

The final violent fight scene between Thomas Smith’s Macbeth and Duncan Macintyre’s Macduff is the best I have ever seen; frightening in its intensity and headlong desire to remove the smugly entrenched madman from this earth – which is, after all, the central driver of the play. Its unalloyed fervour plays superbly as against Macintyre’s nicely underplayed scene on learning of the cruel murder of his family. Top marks all round.   

And finally there is Henry V. While Macbeth has the best overall performances, this segment’s dramatic shape interests me greatly (at a time when the UK is now fighting to get OUT of Europe). Directed by Erina Daniels, it pits the medieval France-England struggle in Māori conceits using subtly blue-highlighted cloaks for the French and red-highlighted ones for the English. Use of vigorous Māori hand movements also gives energy to what would otherwise be overly static segments.

When you think about it, the Plantagenets would have seen the French as having no better right to rule France in 1415 than the Hanoverians would have seen Maori having a similar right to rule New Zealand in 1769. Henry kisses Kate to seal the final postwar bargain while the paramount Chiefs signed the paper Treaty.  Either way the future is left rife with unease and an imaginative modern world connection is both established and robustly carried through by the well-directed actors.

This is an excellent effort of will by these young actors. The ‘depiction’ of Agincourt as raw to-ing and fro-ing shoulder power through the constrained middle line space using only four pushing and recoiling soldiers is highly effective. So too are the final farewells between the King and his brother generals. Siting the immortal Crispin’s Day speech of the King from a commanding godlike position in the public gallery works well, though the speech itself calls for more sonorous depth.       

And through it all good old Bill the Midlands Scribbler keeps on delivering. If you treat him well he always comes up trumps. Incredibly, his work is on the back foot in too many school systems around the world through ill-advised state tampering. However, with the help of these newly inspired folk (and the SGCNZ) his ever-beguiling voice and timeless themes will continue to be heard and seen clear. He will outlive us all and provide thought and direction on human hopes and flaws in an increasingly naughty world. There is no higher cause.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

This theatrical spectacle lies at the heart of a massive network of supportive effort aimed at uniting this country’s youth with the exciting possibilities of personal working in the revived Globe Theatre in London. The public and private sectors work impressively together in an effort that has already taken about 500 young Kiwis through a worldwide process and fed them with amazing success into the demanding business of theatre, both here and abroad.

It is invidious and time-consuming to set it all out here but it’s manifest that our theatre royalty in the likes of Dawn Sanders and Bill Sheat (and many others) continue to take an active interest along with boatloads of academics, clubs and trusts, professional theatres and the Ministry of Youth Development. The Minister of Finance himself (wearing his culture hat) is in the audience and is pleasingly engaged both during and after.  I hope that covers the general background if, like the show itself, only in miniature.

The emerging actors have had a matter of a few days to cobble together demanding 40 minute performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (a comedy), Macbeth (a tragedy) and Henry V (a durable patriotic warhorse). Overall, they are eminently successful in giving us the gist of each while our own theatrically-trained minds (we hope) fill out the gaps. Principal roles are passed around so, for example, there are more Macbeths in that extract than there were James Bonds in the first Casino Royale movie!

An additional incentive to concentration of effort, is the brutal challenge of strutting your stuff in Parliament’s Legislative Council Chamber, an environment that is close to being anti-theatre. The Hall was designed for political bullfighting. It would be one of the direst areas in which I have ever witnessed performances of the Bard. It is long with a single northern door leading up to the Speaker’s chair area. It has the acoustical qualities of a laminated brick. The seats are set in two sets of parallel lines through the length of the hall. This leaves the cast to perform in an equally long trench between the two sets of unraked seating. This guarantees impossible sight lines and hearing as the cast are constantly turning around to address the gathering; all akin to the swooping trombone section of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

The ensemble is, throughout, compelled to march in from the right and hare off through available doors. The modern day theatrical dimensions of built up height levels, lighting touches that redefine stage areas and introduce complex visual angles are shut off. Just another challenge I suppose and one that is readily taken up.

Furthermore, by dint of a supreme irony the only sources of warming acoustic power are in the public gallery one floor up. In other words the choicest speaking areas are where anyone talking there was ‘out of order’ and ejected from the building.

I will leap, for a moment, to the end of the evening. After the performance part of the event the massed band of actors comes together to sing two songs with added actions and sign language; all topped off with a splendidly unique haka. Therein, they demonstrate that working in theatre is one of the greatest of human endeavours. They have come from all parts of the country to hammer out thoughtful performances. They are more than just a performing team. They have become a band of brothers and sisters. They are forever changed. Theatre does that to you.

And it shows in the three chosen pieces. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Terence Crawford, is performed in night attire devised by student costumier River Charteris-Wright and with musical transitions devised by student composer Emma Burgess. The preposterous-but-sublime merging of the marriage aspiration and thespian hopes of fairies and ‘mechanicals’ is achieved with some panache. It produces sincere laughter and other much desired responses from the audience.

The dreamlike qualities of Shakespeare’s first effective comedy are realised in a ho-hum space woefully devoid of its own magic. The transformation of the lively and expressive Dee van Wel’s rendition of Bottom into the lumpier and stunned-mullet version (well delivered by Connor Norris) is a highlight of the truncated piece; one that is hard enough to pull off in the play’s entire format let alone when severely edited.

The entire tone then changes with the Scottish play: Macbeth. This is directed by James Cain with the same tyro costumiers and composers (who enliven all the pieces). The accent in the reduced version is stronger on the alarming political machinations and horrific killings while the demonic aspects are lessened. There are four actors playing Macbeth, three of them women.

Here one must pause and say that moving key parts around is little bit like those halcyon days when up-and-coming all Blacks played trials as Possibles v Probables. Everyone wanted to shine across the range before being rudely told to hand their shirt to another up-and-coming in order to give them a go.

I think Takunda Muzondiwa is a spiffing Macbeth while wearing her latest Thane hat. Her eyes lusciously sweep the auditorium with telling ambition. However, she delivers the measured “if it is done when tis done” lines with equal overt relish (which she does so well) only to be perplexingly rebuked by the then-operative Lady Macbeth for lacking vigour. Just another limitation on the format, alas.   

The final violent fight scene between Thomas Smith’s Macbeth and Duncan Macintyre’s Macduff is the best I have ever seen; frightening in its intensity and headlong desire to remove the smugly entrenched madman from this earth – which is, after all, the central driver of the play. Its unalloyed fervour plays superbly as against Macintyre’s nicely underplayed scene on learning of the cruel murder of his family. Top marks all round.   

And finally there is Henry V. While Macbeth has the best overall performances, this segment’s dramatic shape interests me greatly (at a time when the UK is now fighting to get OUT of Europe). Directed by Erina Daniels, it pits the medieval France-England struggle in Māori conceits using subtly blue-highlighted cloaks for the French and red-highlighted ones for the English. Use of vigorous Māori hand movements also gives energy to what would otherwise be overly static segments.

When you think about it, the Plantagenets would have seen the French as having no better right to rule France in 1415 than the Hanoverians would have seen Maori having a similar right to rule New Zealand in 1769. Henry kisses Kate to seal the final postwar bargain while the paramount Chiefs signed the paper Treaty.  Either way the future is left rife with unease and an imaginative modern world connection is both established and robustly carried through by the well-directed actors.

This is an excellent effort of will by these young actors. The ‘depiction’ of Agincourt as raw to-ing and fro-ing shoulder power through the constrained middle line space using only four pushing and recoiling soldiers is highly effective. So too are the final farewells between the King and his brother generals. Siting the immortal Crispin’s Day speech of the King from a commanding godlike position in the public gallery works well, though the speech itself calls for more sonorous depth.       

And through it all good old Bill the Midlands Scribbler keeps on delivering. If you treat him well he always comes up trumps. Incredibly, his work is on the back foot in too many school systems around the world through ill-advised state tampering. However, with the help of these newly inspired folk (and the SGCNZ) his ever-beguiling voice and timeless themes will continue to be heard and seen clear. He will outlive us all and provide thought and direction on human hopes and flaws in an increasingly naughty world. There is no higher cause.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer