Pop-up Globe

Shakespeare in Maori? Why??? The sections of the play involving Titania and Oberon, the Fairy Queen and Fairy King, were performed in Maori which was really annoying if you weren’t from NZ. It’s true that the company itself was (which we hadn’t realised and were not warned about). We needed a translation. Apart from what was in Maori, the words of Shakespeare were very familiar; I had studied A Midsummer Night’s Dream at school some 60 years ago, with an English teacher who made us learn long passages from it. He did a good job as it turned out.

The best part of the play was the “rude mechanicals” AKA  “tradies”, in modern dress with hard hats, work boots and hi-vis jackets. Towards the end, when Pyramus stabbed himself, blood flowed freely from little plastic sachets which was sprayed into the audience standing in the pit area, to the glee of everyone else.

C and E were in the pit originally (tickets were cheap there, standing room only for “groundlings” ) whilst JL and I had purchased front row seats. The problem was, our seats were in the sun, and we were boiled! They need to take a lesson from the “sol o sombra” system in Spanish bullfights where the sombra seats are sold at a premium. Fortunately one of the staff took pity on us and found us better seats in the shade. At this point, C and E appropriated our old seats:

Tradies.

Maori Oberon.

More traditional costumes.

Sitting in the shade during the interval. It was a hot afternoon!

Review of Perth's Pop Up Globe

Review of Sydney production