SGCNZ National Shakespeare Schools Production 2013

Legislative Council Chamber, Parliament House, Wellington

06/10/2013 - 06/10/2013

Scots College Hall, Strathmore Park, Wellington

05/10/2013 - 05/10/2013

Production Details



STUDENTS IN LOVE WITH SHAKESPEARE

Forty-eight Shakespeare-loving students, chosen from 5500 nationwide in Shakespeare Globe CNZ’s 23 Regional University of Otago Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festivals and National Festival are spending a week in the residential SGCNZ National Shakespeare Schools Production week course of workshops and rehearsals at Scots College in Wellington. These culminate in three forty minute performances of scenes from

Cymbeline
directed by Stuart Devenie

Richard III Act I
directed by Tim Spite and

Pericles
directed by Rachel Henry.

CYMBELINE

Current scholarship suggests that Cymbeline is the first of Shakespeare’s final three scripts. It is followed by probably his densest and opaque writing in A Winter’s Tale and his final triumph, The Tempest, notable for its simplicity of plot and speed of action. Cymbeline is a “big” play. Robust masculine and sweeping, the play was probably written specifically for the delight of the Prince of Wales, Henry who died before he could accede to the throne. It is also deeply seditious, positing a renewal of the Catholic relationship with Rome.

The plot concerns an ailing King, Cymbeline, being poisoned slowly by his second wife in order to marry her odious son to the King’s daughter and secure the throne. The princess’ true love, an orphan adopted by the King, is banished and flees to Italy. An Italian lothario decides to travel to England to seduce the princess.

RICHARD III Act I

A jealous humpback Prince (Richard) conspires to kill his two brothers (Edward IV and Clarence) and ascend the throne.  He also conspires to marry Warwick’s daughter, Lady Anne, despite having killed her father and husband.

Whilst Lady Anne is taking her dead husband to be buried, Richard seduces her into the idea of marrying him despite her resolve that he is the devil. When the former Queen, Queen Margaret arrives cursing Richard and company, Richard cunningly turns the curse back on herself.

In the final scene of Act 1, two rather simple assassins hired by Richard go to kill Clarence while he sleeps under Brakenbury’s guard. They relieve Brakenbury of his duty but then deliberate on whether to wake Clarence before they kill him. Clarence wakes and almost talks them out of their mission.

PERICLES

The storytellers tell of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, who is forced to flee his home after assassins are sent to kill him by the incestuous King Antiochus.

Shipwrecked, local fishermen tell him of the Princess Thaisa who will be married to whoever wins her birthday tournament. Pericles wins the tournament and the heart of Thaisa and her Father.

Thaisa dies in childbirth during a great storm and her body is put in a chest, and thrown overboard. She washes up on shore and is taken to a local doctor, Cerimon who revives her. Believing Pericles dead she joins Diana’s temple.
Times passes…Pericles’ daughter, Marina, has grown up under the care of King Cleon and Queen Dionyza. Jealous of Marina, Dyoniza plots her murder, but Marina is seized by pirates and sold in Mytilene to brothel owners, Pander and Bawd. Marina keeps her honour and ruins business by persuading customers to search for virtue. Soon she gets reputable work, educating girls.

Meanwhile Pericles has been told his daughter is dead and full of melancholy he sails the seas.

He arrives in Mytilene and is reunited with the now famous Marina. Diana appears to Pericles in a dream and he vows to visit her temple where, to great joy, they are then also reunited with Thaisa.

~~~

The workshops are taken by high calibre tutors, Sir Jon Trimmer, Dr Ida Gaskin, Michael Wilson, Carmel McGlone, Michael Nicholas Williams and Allan Henry.

Through continuous assessment throughout the week, twenty-four of the students will be selected to form SGCNZ Young Shakespeare Company 2014, which will travel to the Globe in July next year.

SGCNZ Alumni can be found in a high proportion of productions throughout the country, as well as on big and small screen, not to mention those in the audiences and playing key roles managing theatres, cooperatives, behind the scenes as technical crew, front of house, doing publicity and promotion and much more to contribute to the cultural richness of this country. For those who do not follow an artistic career path, the skills the students acquire are transferable into a raft of other occupations and professions.

The public performances are on

Saturday 5 October 7.30pm at Scots College
book through www.iTicket.co.nz or door sales;

Sunday 6 October 4.00pm in the Legislative Chamber in Parliament
by pre-booking only up till 2 October.


RICHARD III Act I

Director:  Tim Spite
Student Composer:  Madeline Bradley

CAST:
Richard Gloucester
Sarah Cronin, Rebecca Hughes, Georgia Tawharu, Tim Bradley, Luke Burke 
ClarenceElloit Dockary
BrackenburyJackson Bliss-McCauley
Buckingham/Dorest/HastingsFinn McCauley 
Lady AnneAlice Jones, Lydia Vershaffelt
Queen Elizabeth INishaa Senarath-Dassanayake, Anastasia Roberts, Jesse Reese
Grey / 1st MurdererMatthew Staijen, Stainton Lee-Brown

CYMBELINE

Director:  Stuart Devenie
Student Composer:  Madeline Bradley
Student Costumier:  Rachel McDonald 

CAST:
Cymbeline/Philario
JT Taylor
ClotenJames Armstrong
Posthumus/LeoantusMatthew Scadden 
PisamoKate Hellings
Imogen 1Emily Hurley 
Imogen 2Niamh Conlon
Iachimo 1Nethmi Karunanayake 
Iachimo 2/FrenchmanKieran Morris
Iachimo 3Tanaka Utete
First GentlemanPeter Thomson 
Queen 1/Lady/WaiterSophie Lake 
Queen 2Felicity Tomkins 
First LordJamie Owers 
Second Lord/LadyGrace Drysdale-Dunn
CorneliusEmma Preston or Jamie Owers 

PERICLES 

Director:  Rachel Henry
Student Costumier:  Rachel McDonald

CAST 
Gower 1: 
Ben Ashby
Gower 2:  Angela Jenks
Pericles 1:  Luke Borthwick 
Pericles 2:  Blake Wong 
Marina:  Freya Boyle
Thaisia:  Mariata Pittman
Simonides:  Lochie Hynd 
Dyoniza:  Jessica White 
Helicanus / Leonine:  Kendal McFetridge 
Boult:  Joshua Coles-Braun 
Bawd / Third Fisherman:  Hamish Petersen 
Philiamon / Dian:  Tess Rao 
Lychordia / Pandar:  Eliza Staniland 
Cleon / Lysimachus:  Lochlaim Basford 
Musical Gower:  Madeline Bradley 
Cerimon, First Fisherman:  Joel Rudolph 

Song ~ Were the World Mine
Lyrics:  Cory Krueckeburg
Composer:  Jessica Fogle
Arranged & taught by:  
Michael Nicholas Williams
Performed by:  Full Company

Waiata ~ He Honore
Taught & rehearsed by
:  Tanaka Utete 
Performed by:  Full Company

Haka
Taught & rehearsed by
:  JT Taylor
Performed by:  Full Company 

 

Stage Manager: Alice Pardoe

Producer: Dawn Sanders, Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand 


Theatre ,


A life-altering experience

Review by Lori Leigh 06th Oct 2013

“To glad your ear, and please your eyes” – Gower, Pericles.

“All the world’s a stage,” goes the oft-quoted line from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, and on Friday night the stage was the school hall at Scot’s College where 48 teenagers from across New Zealand trod the boards to present works from the Bard.  

This is one of my favourite events of the year, presented by one of the most essential arts organisations in the country: Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand (SGCNZ)’s National Shakespeare School’s Production (NSSP) 2013. SGCNZ calls itself “a life-skills enhancing organization”, and NSSP, one of its many events, takes teenagers on a week-long intensive course where they study aspects of stagecraft and Shakespeare’s works. The production is the culmination of this week, directed by three industry professionals, and open to the public.  

Thus, in a true Shakespearean vein, NSSP has had little rehearsal, a mere five half days to be exact. As CEO Dawn Sanders reminds the audience in her introduction, this evening is a “work-in-progress”.  While at times this workshop-style is evident through the occasional prompting or script-in-hand performance, most of the time the level of performance matches many full productions which have been rehearsed for weeks.  

I congratulate the work of the organiser, directors, and tutors for the confidence and command of the language the students convey after such a short time. It is truly extraordinary.

Of course these 48 students are the ‘cream of the crop’, having been culled from over 5,500 participants from the University of Otago Sheila Winn Shakespeare Festival last June; as SGCNZ Chair Bill Sheat calls it: “A rigorous process of assessment.” 

Once the students arrive at NSSP, they are divided into three groups, and each group is assigned a director and play: in this case Stuart Devenie, Rachel Henry, and Tim Spite who direct Cymbeline, Pericles, and Richard III, respectively. As a director and teacher of Shakespeare myself, and someone who has, consequently, spent many hours listening to Shakespearean monologues and scenes for the purposes of auditions, festivals, and classes, I applaud SGCNZ and two of the directors for their choices of Cymbeline and Pericles, two of Shakespeare’s late plays or romances.

What a treat to see scenes from these lesser-known and thus not often performed works. Often directors shy away from these works not simply because they are not as popular and well-known as some earlier plays, but also because as Shakespeare matured as a writer, his language, as well as his themes and plots, become more challenging and complex.  For many of us, however, myself included, we consider these some of Shakespeare’s best work. The students of NSSP 2013 embrace this challenge and excel in it. 

For those who like the favourites, the first play of the evening is one of Shakespeare’s most well-known plays, Richard III, directed by Tim Spite. The cast wears neutral colours; the stage is bare; props are mimed save a wooden coffin for Henry VI.

Richard, all in blacks, is an amalgamation of five actors, who chorus-like, move with twists and spins circling one another as they each take their turns emerging to become the voice. This directorial conceit is, of course, at minimum, practical, giving many students an opportunity to play the leading role.

Sharing roles is a theme throughout the evening – typically signified by picking up on a final line or the handing off of a costume piece. I assume here, however, the multiple Richards is also an attempt to re-create a type of “monster”, to signify the differing voices /aspects /personalities of the deformed King.

Richard, performed this way, offers some interesting moments such as his enclosure (physical entrapment) of Lady Anne during the wooing scene upon the mention of “bedchamber”.  A standout of this Richard III for me is the scene of Clarence’s murder in the tower where the two murders completely capture the grotesque humour and brutality of the killing. 

After the scenes from Richard III, the student composer, Madeline Bradley, takes the stage with guitar in hand to perform her rendition of ‘Ariel’s Lullaby’ (“Come unto these yellow sands”) from The Tempest.  I don’t think I’m overstating to say that Bradley’s song alone would make it worth attending the evening. Her voice is incredible, unique, and the lullaby is haunting, seductive, supernatural: exactly as I imagine Ariel singing to Ferdinand in the play.  I quickly flick through my programme and am not surprised to see she’s been one of the TOP 24 Contestants on the NZ X Factor.  I’m tempted to add, “Lorde, watch out.” 

Following ‘Ariel’s Lullaby’ is Devenie’s Cymbeline, one of my favourite plays. The selection focuses on the first few scenes of the play, including the separation of Imogen and Posthumus, the wager between Posthumus and the villain Iachimo, the Queen’s plot to poison Cymbeline, and Iachimo’s invasion of Innogen’s bedchamber via trunk. 

All of the leads in this Cymbeline are excellent, especially the three Iachimos. (I wish in this production the name had been performed as Innogen, not Imogen, but this is a scholar speaking.)

A true highlight of the evening for me is the third and final play, Pericles. Rather than performing scenes from the first half of the play—as the others did, Henry chooses to cut the play so the audience receive the arc of the full story. (This is somewhat easier to do with Pericles given the “gaps” in the play are easily filled in by its narrator, Gower.)

The actors are dressed in summery, Pasifika garb and accompanied by the ukulele, capturing the many nautical elements in the play. (Marina’s name means “born at sea”.). This is truly an even and ensemble performance with all of the actors watching the story unfold from onstage and aiding in the transitions of time and place through movements and music. They invite us, as Gower does, to be a part of the story.

I laugh at the Bawd and the pirates (which in this production are actual “Yarr”-speaking, hook-handed pirates) and feel moved, when at last, Pericles is reunited with his wife and daughter. Likewise, the actors seem to understand the musicality of the language and are adept at embodying the verse without rigidity. 

The evening is rounded by a beautiful song “Were the World Mine”, a Waiata, and a Haka performed by the full company, which is a delightful way to close the evening.

As the evening ends, I can feel the warm buzzy glow of proud parents and friends fill the space.  At the end of this week, half (24) of these NSSPers will be selected to form the Young Shakespeare Company (YSC) and travel to Shakespeare’s Globe in London, but even without this trip to London they have all been given a life-altering experience. Everyone involved – from the teachers, directors, supervisors, parents, and especially the students – should be immensely proud.

This year’s presentation, as always, delivers the passion, energy, and enthusiasm I’ve come to expect from this event. It is a must-see experience for any avid Shakespeare fan or anyone interested in, and invested in, youth theatre, as well as the future of the performing arts in New Zealand.

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