Last year the spectre of Death swooped across Auckland Theatre Company’s production of Romeo and Juliet dressed as Jackie Kennedy walking JFK’s funeral parade. Amanda Tito’s rendition of it was one of the most memorable things in the production. Death has always lurked around every corner of that play, but here was a whole new way for it to be present.
It’s been four centuries and change since William Shakespeare died, and his plays are regularly performed all around the world, on mainstages and community theatres alike. Is there any other writer to have entire practices and forms named after them (Shakespeare in the Park, Summer Shakespeare, et al.)?
Aotearoa is no exception. Theatres might not have to pay him to put on his work – which I imagine is nice for the budget – but something else must be keeping him relevant, right? I spoke to three people involved with his work in the past, at present, and likely in the future, to find out.
Amanda Tito remembers director Ben Henson’s strange pitch last year. “He basically said, ‘Look, think mausoleum, think you running it.’” It made total sense to Tito. “It comes from the script. Death is as important as love in Romeo and Juliet. Death is this ever-present thing that is hanging over everybody, and he wanted to acknowledge that presence.” They say that by going back into the text, and asking what has been missed, what voice has not yet been heard, Henson found a way to contemporise the work in “a whole new way”.
“Sorry to all the poor high schoolers who had to do a test on Romeo and Juliet, they might fail! Because it was so different, but who’s to say that at one point that it wasn’t the point?”
Tito is currently playing The Porter in the same company’s rendition of Macbeth. It’s one of the most famous parts of one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, and is often played by a comedian, when it’s not cut because of how tonally dissonant it can come off (when not done right, obviously). Tito says that there can be a weird onus that an actor puts upon it. “I’m about to do the bit that everyone is waiting for, the bit that everyone knows, that everyone quotes. It’s up on this huge pedestal that encompasses both excitement and fear”
Tito considers themselves a relatively fearless actor who isn’t afraid to make a fool of themselves or be wrong – except in a moment where there is expectation. With The Porter’s speech, they feel a wall being put up. “I have to actively find it in myself to realise that the expectation from the audience is never going to go away, so I lean in and go: ‘Watch me.’”
They believe that Shakespeare remains valuable for an actor. When they were a “poor actor” hustling gigs, they were in pantomime of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for five year olds, and believes it taught them how to be a better actor. “I was playing Puck, and this child came up to me and went, ‘You’re so naughty!” and she laid out the whole plot. She nailed the whole thing. She knew exactly what was going on.”
“If I can make a five year old understand Shakespeare, I can make an audience understand any contemporary work I do.”
Despite being a bonafide big deal, Sir Gregory Doran is about as amiable as you can get. He’s not a scholar who wants to teach, he’s a scholar who wants to learn. His recent trip to Aotearoa involved a trip to Rotorua to spend time researching the tale of Hinemoa and Tutanekai for his upcoming project (working title: Star-Crossed). The project came about partly because he was in Aotearoa around the time of the debacle around the Shakespeare Globe Centre not receiving Creative New Zealand funding (curious eyes may note they did receive funding in the latest round).
He read a quote from professor Nicola Hyland: “It would be a massive, awesome act of decolonisation if we discovered our own stories first and discovered Shakespeare afterwards.” He specifically referenced Hinemoa and Tutanekai compared to Romeo and Juliet.
“Everywhere I’ve been around the world, people have come and said, ‘Oh well, do you know about this story?” He references Chikamatsu Monzaemon – referred to mononymously as Chikamatsu – particularly, whose “The Love Suicides at Sonezaki”, as the title might hint,has a few similarities to Romeo and Juliet.
For Doran, what makes a Romeo and Juliet story (to use that as a foundation for ease, but it’s by no means the first version of this), is that it is about love across a societal divide. Whether it is by Chikamatsu, or a story passed down in Kurdish lore, or yes, even our own Hinemoa and Tutanekai, that remains the same.
Doran then considered that he didn’t really know the various variations of Romeo and Juliet, but that he should know. “We all have universal stories which apply and are very different in very particular ways, but essentially we tell ourselves the same story..”
“The difference in the Māori story is that it’s regarded as actually history; it actually happened, and that means that the variations in the story become slightly more contentious”
On this trip, he spent time in Rotorua, and was able to see the flute that Tutanekai played, and the rock that Hinemoa sat on. “My biggest surprise was just how alive the story of Hinemoa and Tutanekai is in Rotorua. There is a great sense of ownership of the story, it is their family history after all, and at the same time, just how contested some of the detail is.”
On this trip, he also ran a Shakespeare workshop with several high schools, working with their experience of what Hinemoa and Tutanekai was. “They began to get enthusiastic about telling me the story and arguing with each other about what the story really was, which I love.” When they compared the story to Romeo and Juliet, there was one clear distinction. “T Hinemoa has all the agency. She swims across the lake, so she climbs the balcony, if you like. And they picked up on those things!”
It’s fitting that Doran’s entry into Shakespeare was also as a high schooler, when he played Lady Anne in an all-boys school production of Richard III. “This is in the seventies, so we all looked like the Osmonds,” he jokes. “The sixth-former who was playing Richard II was so glamorous and sexy, and I was just completely in love with him.” If you know the play, you also know that at one point, Richard kisses Lady Anne – who Doran happened to be playing.
“It was just on the hand,” he clarifies. “So it got to that rehearsal where he had to kiss me and I must have rolled my eyes or something, because the teacher, who was directing it from the back of the hall shouted, ‘Doran, don’t do that!’”
What keeps him invested is Shakespeare’s compassion. “He seems to know us from 360 degrees. And he’s robust. He’ll take whatever we throw at it because he’s always there.” Doran uses Sartre as a touchpoint to understand Shakespeare’s enduring importance.
“In this godless modern world, man has a god-shaped hole in his consciousness. I filled mine with Shakespeare because to me, there’s more wisdom, more compassion, and more humanity in those plays than I’ve ever found in the Bible.”
Kayleigh Haworth, a performer in her own right, is also a high school teacher who has taught Shakespeare for years. She believes the works of Shakespeare can provide a framework, and an example of expressing what it is to be human. “The joy, the anguish, the rage, the silliness, the despair – it’s like a hand reaching from the past to say, ‘Hey, I felt the heavy pang of unrequited love also, or I felt misunderstood by my parents and peers.'”
The main barrier for young people to access Shakespeare might be the language, and she admits that unless someone teaches you the skills to decode it, that it can feel unintelligible. But for her, that’s the joy of teaching this work. She loves “seeing someone’s eyes light up when they realise that rather than just pompous prose, this is the forebear of slander, gossip, slang and some of the raunchiest entendres you’ll ever be allowed to borrow from a school library.”
The competition for the ears, eyes, and attention spans of young people is cutthroat – and Shakespeare’s ‘status’ can rob students of the luxury to take time and percolate. “The urgency of modern living and the modern learning environment don’t do this process any favours, there’s a lot of ‘but what job’ without consideration for what we’re doing to develop ethical, resilient, entrepreneurial, creative future citizens.”
Haworth thinks Shakespeare holds value as a touchpoint to what happened before, after, and what might come next for society. “He doesn’t exist in isolation on some lofty pedestal in an ivory tower, Shakespeare wrote for the groundlings just as much as the Gods.”
