A true phenomenon, this: each year a benign epidemic sweeps through Aotearoa, infecting every secondary school age Shakespeare enthusiast or aspiring young actor.

The Shakespeare’s Globe Centre NZ University of Otago Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival occurs in centres throughout the country every year.  From the hundreds who perform, 46 of the very best are chosen for an intensive week of study with tutors and directors.  A public performance of three plays, cut to 40 minutes each, is given and half the students will be chosen to attend a three week course at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, finishing with a performance on the Globe stage.  It has been well recognised and documented – see Lexie Matheson’s 2012 review and Lori Leigh‘s 2013 review – but it is still a mind-blowing venture.* 

The organisers modestly call it ‘work in progress’, but all three productions are astonishingly polished.  I am amazed by the work that has been done and the standard achieved; the sheer gusto of a young company acting with extraordinary confidence after less than a week’s rehearsal.  All the lines learnt are the least of it – the actors’ self-confidence must come from knowing they are in safe hands.  The three professional directors with their scholarly in-depth knowledge of Shakespeare as well as their stage experience have done a fantastic job. 

A history play, a comedy, a tragedy – if they have a common theme, it is one very well suited to the youthful cast: all are about young men growing up and facing their responsibilities.  King Henry has to prove himself a man worth following after his indiscretions with merry Falstaff and co; the young men of Love’s Labour’s Lost are absurdly boastful about their independence yet obsessed with girls; Hamlet often seems the ultimate dithering and self-centred adolescent.  Politics too are a uniting thread, with all three plays exploring the tortuous relationships between countries, which too often result in war.

A hundred years ago 100,000 New Zealanders went to England’s aid in WW1.  Incredibly 95,000 young New Zealanders have now participated in the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festivals, hoping for a chance to perform in England’s Globe Theatre.  Life enhancement through Shakespeare instead of war for this generation, thank you. 

Henry V is directed with vigour by Colin Spicer, who has seized on the opportunities for group work and formed his cast into a tight-knit fighting force, responding with glowing fervour to the rousing speeches of the young warrior-king.  With remarkable discipline and enviable flexibility, like the greyhounds Henry names them, the actors leap and roll, fight, exult and die, their energy flaming across the stage and through the auditorium, to martial drumroll. 

A few blocks support the strong, clear choreography of the army scenes, and costume (Emma Corbett throughout) is merely items of camouflage army gear over rehearsal blacks, with red arm bands for the English, blue for the French.  Seven actors, swopping a crown, share Harry’s famous lines, from the opening scene where he receives with dignity the French King’s insulting gift of tennis balls, to taunt him with his past frivolity, through “Once more unto the breach… or close the wall up with our English dead”, to the magnificent address on St Crispian’s Day: “He today that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother.”

Although I miss some comic characters, and the wooing of Princess Katherine, Spicer has done well to cut the play to the actions of war, and focus on the difference made by an inspiring leader.  Last weekend I saw a moving production in little Hampden (North Otago), comprising the district’s own memories of WW1, in which one soldier recalled drawing straws to see which man of his battalion would shoot the commanding officer who was sending them recklessly to their deaths.  It’s tempting to assume it was Henry’s gloriously inspiring language that ensured he was followed, rather than assassinated, by his “band of brothers”. 

Love’s Labour’s Lost, charmingly directed by Kim Morgan, forms a light-hearted contrast, revolving instead around the age-old battle of the sexes.  In this play, the young King of Navarre (it’s in the Pyrenees, on the border between France and Spain) has persuaded his three friends to join him in forswearing women to concentrate on study.  It smacks of first year University good resolutions, high-minded of course, but given they are attractive red-blooded lads with cool waistcoats and gorgeous hair, no way will this last!  Their vows are immediately put to the test by the arrival of the Princess of France and her three lovely ladies, who are more than a match for them. 

This comedy is not often performed, perhaps because the witty word-play, brimming with delicate conceits on the meaning of love, can be confusing to a modern audience.  However, Morgan ensures the plot is easy to follow, keeps the stage-picture pretty and develops delightful, playful relationships between the would-be lovers. 

The verbal wrangling of the lovelorn men and their ladies is reminiscent of the merry war between Beatrice and Benedict (in Much Ado About Nothing), but there are many other cute conventions Shakespeare has employed in other comedies, like mis-delivered love letters, a delicious spying scene, and a ludicrous play-within-the-play put on to entertain the gentry.  The audience responds with particular joy to the funny episode when the boys turn up to woo the girls in disguise as Russians, complete with hilarious accents and fierce moustaches. 

In Morgan’s adaptation full attention is paid to the lesser characters, who include Don Armado, a wonderfully absurd Spanish grandee, Moth his crafty page, Jacquenetta the wench he fancies, and her other swain, the simpleton Costard; as well as two quaint pedants (the curate and the schoolmaster) and even a constable called Dull.  Morgan brings a clever and amusing Commedia influence to these comic characters, and it is a pleasure to see the actors rise to the challenge of taking their body shaping and movement to the extreme.  The pace is lively and, as with Henry V, the actors show remarkable command of their lines.  It all makes for happy viewing, and if there are mistakes, we don’t spot them. 

For all the charms of the first two plays, it is easy to see why Hamlet is regarded as a masterpiece. Stuart Young has ensured we are enthralled by a fast-moving and affecting tragedy, his skilful cutting and juxtaposing of scenes adding to the excitement.  Young has recently been obliged to exercise restraint as a director because of the limits of the Verbatim Theatre form in which he has been working.  Here he has allowed his inventiveness free rein and the results are astonishing. 

The play opens with a sizzling tango for the newly wed King and Queen, while Hamlet, her son and his nephew, sulks in black.  The ghost scenes are dramatic, torches flashing light around the dark auditorium while the cast create a soundscape of spooky night-noises.  Hamlet, by the exchange of his coat, is played by two actors, which means Young can employ an intriguing mirroring technique to enable Hamlet to ask, “To be or not to be?” of his own reflection.  An amusing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (love the “play upon my pipe” scene!) likewise make admirable foils for each other, and are so engaging I hope this time they will survive.

The travelling players perform The Mousetrap with exactly the right degree of ham acting, while Hamlet shocks Ophelia with his deliberately crude innuendo: “Lady, may I lie in your lap? Did you think I meant count-ry matters?” (That whole passage was expurgated from our school Shakespeare, but Young wisely trusts the maturity of these poised young actors.)

The cast remains seated in full view throughout, and the simplest of devices are used for the staging.  The droll old courtier Polonius conceals himself by pulling down his hoodie, then flails wildly as it becomes the arras through which Hamlet stabs him.  His daughter Ophelia impressively backflips her way into madness when Hamlet rejects her, and is tenderly carried to her grave by her brother Laertes to the accompaniment of creepy off-stage music.  

The lively fencing scene that ensues between Hamlet and Laertes is most impressive, and as the tragedy comes to its nail-biting conclusion there are even more corpses littering the stage than Shakespeare intended.  Indeed, a twist at the end makes it somewhat doubtful whether Hamlet’s story will ever be reported to the unsatisfied after all.  Whatever, Young’s version of Hamlet is a thoroughly exciting work that must thrill the performers as much as the spectators. 

The evening comes to a perfect conclusion with beautiful singing by Frances Campbell, who has been the musical composer throughout, then a jolly Snatch by the company, taught by tutor Judy Bellingham, and finally magnificent waiata and haka taught by two of the talented students themselves: Matawai Uitime-Nicolls and Te Awariki Lardelli. 

This production has been an extraordinary experience combining the genius of Shakespeare, the skill of three fine directors and the splendid talents of a new generation of young actors.  We celebrate the aims and achievements of the Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand and its elfin CEO, Dawn Sanders, whose dedication and passion for Shakespeare has created something that is truly unique in the world. 

*Nor is it only the school students who are able to share the Globe experience – check out the website, www.sgcnz.org.nz.  Last year I myself was one of an ecstatic group of mature drama-in-education practitioners representing New Zealand for two weeks of inspiring master classes, winding up with a performance on the Globe stage.  The whole adventure was all I’d dreamt of, and truly one of the highlights of my life. I was also able to witness at first hand the special relationship our local organisation has built up with Shakespeare’s Globe, and the high regard in which New Zealanders are held, most especially Dawn and illustrious alumni like Rawiri Paratene, currently touring the world in the Globe-to-Globe Hamlet.

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