For Rawiri
Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, was about to drink her goblet of poison in the play’s bloody final act.
‘‘This girl shouts out, ‘No, don’t be drinking that, don’t be drinking that!’ And the woman playing Gertrude stopped and looked at the girl and then [tossed it back] and the girl shouted out, ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you!’’’ Paretene says.
‘‘It was really quite Elizabethan, in terms of the responses.’’
Paratene hopes he’ll have similar experiences in New Zealand with the Pop-up Globe. He thinks the theatre’s unique structure – it is a painstakingly researched replica of the Second Globe Theatre, where many of Shakespeare’s plays were first performed – will lend itself to audience interaction.
It’s tempting, he says, for an actor to play up to the audience to invite that kind of engagement, but he’s learned it can have a negative impact on the performance.
Despite his formidable reputation as a Shakespearean actor, Paratene still had to audition.
Pop-up Globe artistic director Dr Miles Gregory says the company is committed to giving everyone a fair go in its audition process.
‘‘There’s something very exciting about knowing that the decisions I’ve made about casting – and, of course, there are other people who make those decisions as well, the other directors – are fully informed by the talent I see in the room, and not about people’s reputations.’’
That said, he’s very pleased to be directing Paratene in Henry V.
‘‘The opportunity to work with someone as experienced, with such a great talent, as Rawiri, someone who internationally is a figure recognised as a leader in Shakespeare in New Zealand – I think we’re all just very delighted to have the opportunity to work with him,’’ Gregory says.
Paratene jokes that what attracted him to the project was the prospect of ‘‘five months’ work’’.
‘‘I’m still a good person to keep off the street, to have my hands busy. I’m not saying that’s the only reason, but it’s a good reason for any actor to have a gig that covers a long period of time.’’
Surprisingly little is known of Shakespeare’s actual life, and scholars are constantly trying to glean reflections of the writer in his plays.
Paratene says that after many years of Shakespeare he has a ‘‘little bit’’ of a sense of the human behind it all.
Certainly he knows enough to know that these aren’t sacred texts – they’re written by a human with foibles and very worldly concerns.
This was rammed home for him in a production of Macbeth he did in Wellington. On the first day of rehearsals, the director flung a copy of Shakespeare’s complete works on the floor and made the actors trample on it. Paratene smeared some of his sandwich on the book to remove the tapu.
‘‘I loved that, I loved it, and I’m sure Shakespeare would like that – any writer would,’’ he says.
With increased familiarity has also come an increased sense for when Shakespeare isn’t at his best.
‘‘He’s not without his flaws,’’ Paratene says. ‘‘There are some terrible bits in Hamlet – all of that stuff about the pirates and all of that. What was he smoking? My God. He writes a terrible story about pirates – it’s absolute rubbish.’’
One of the reasons Paratene hopes he isn’t still working in a decade is because the work is getting harder. As he ages he finds performing more mentally and physically challenging.
‘‘Learning bloody lines is a hell of a task, you know,’’ he says.
He keeps count of how many slipups he makes in each rehearsal, noting which lines he’s fumbling over.
‘‘I never used to have to bother to do that as a younger actor, but as an older actor – it’s an awful feeling, it’s just an awful feeling where suddenly you’re blank and you’ve got no idea where the hell you are and everyone’s looking at you going, ‘Oh no, he’s gone again’. It is, it’s awful, it’s not enjoyable in the least.’’
For now, however, Paratene shows no sign of slowing down. He’s working on a screenplay, which he has ambitions of directing – another two years of work if it comes to fruition.
There’s at least one more Shakespeare character he’d like to try his hand at, too: the comedic drunkard Sir John Falstaff, who appears in several plays.
‘‘I’m not saying I identify with an aristocratic drunk, a womanising loudmouth, but yeah, he’d be delicious. He’d be delicious,’’ Paratene says – almost like he’s eyeing up a juicy apple, ready for a munch.
The reveal
Dr Miles Gregory has been sitting on the announcement for some time.
After a first season that blew all expectations out the water, the Pop-up Globe will rise again – this time in the gardens at Ellerslie Racecourse.
Along with commercial director Tobias Grant, he stands before a host of reporters in the company’s new workshop space in Grey Lynn, Auckland, preparing for the big reveal.
It’s a wet spring day, and a quartet of the company’s string musicians play soothing music while rain sprays the workshop’s roof.
The announcement seems to go down well. The new theatre will sport a number of improvements that take it even closer to the Jacobean original.
Afterwards, Gregory – ebullient, a twirled moustache, loafers, flatcap, glasses – sits down on a couch to talk about the plays they’re putting on.
Last season there were two. This time there will be four: Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Othello, and Henry V.
‘‘We wanted to present four plays that are united by common themes – the themes of love and jealousy. We wanted four productions that are wellknown enough to inspire people to come to see them,’’ he says.
The job of choosing which works to perform fell largely to Gregory as the company’s artistic director. He’s spent most of his life studying Shakespeare – study which has included numerous stints directing plays.
He’ll be directing Henry V in 2017. The play is most famous for two epic speeches: ‘‘Once more unto the breach’’, and ‘‘We band of brothers’’, but Gregory is most impressed by the lines Shakespeare writes for the Chorus.
‘‘I’ve always been profoundly influenced by the Chorus’ speeches in Henry V, which I think are masterpieces of storytelling, they’re just beautifully written,’’ he says.
December 15 2016 The beehive
The Pop-up Globe’s Grey Lynn production facility is the first time the company has had everyone working together in the same building.
Last time, the company’s offices were totally separate to its workshop.
Now they’re together, it’s a hive of activity. Downstairs in the workshop area, builders are working on the sets. The company’s armourer polishes a breastplate for Henry V. In a back room, the costume department is busy sewing and fitting ornate fabrics.
Gregory is upstairs in the office space, where about 10 other staff members are working.
‘‘The buzz in this building is something else,’’ he says. The team needs little motivation; they’re all inspired by the project they’re working on.
‘‘They’re all so excited and committed, and experts in their own fields, and I just sometimes feel that we’ve just let them do what they want to do, and what they want to do is make this stuff,’’ Gregory says.
For many members of this team – Gregory not least among them – Shakespeare is a lifelong passion. Once it’s in your system, you never really get it out, he says.
‘‘I think the great thing about Shakespeare is that you never get to the bottom, there’s always more. And the plays don’t change; we do.’’
Gregory is excited about his own play, Henry V. This is the second time he’s directed it – the last time was in London in 2002. ‘‘It’s the same play, but I’ve changed a hell of a lot. It’s amazing to come back to it again and see how differently I view the play.’’
Gregory chose Henry V partly because the spectacle it offers will make the most of the theatre space. He can’t resist revealing that he’s already ordered 80 litres of fake blood.
He offers one more hint: ‘‘Flaming arrows. I won’t say anything more.’’
January 11 2017 The build
For a moment, he is a giant, looming over the roof of the Pop-up Globe.
The next, the structure dwarfs him as it rises from the grass at Ellerslie Racecourse.
Gregory is onsite to guide reporters through the construction of the theatre, which began with the setting of the foundations over Christmas. In a few weeks the mass of scaffolding will be a theatre fit for 900 people.
Gregory has brought with him a scale model of the finished Globe so he can show reporters what it’ll look like – the ornate stage front, the painted ceiling, the cannon in the roof.
The model, he says, is for more than just educating media. It’s also useful for the construction team, and the actors and directors also use it to familiarise themselves with the space they’ll be working in.
All staff have to watch an instructional video on the proper way to pack it into its special foam-lined box.
A great deal of research, undertaken by Gregory and the company’s head of research David Lawrence, has gone into this model. Even the size and colour of the bricks in the stage front are as close as possible to the original second Globe’s, which burned to the ground in 1613.
‘‘We’re effectively trying to create a time machine, that can take us back as modern audience members 350 years to try to understand why these plays made such a huge impact when they did,’’ Gregory says.
Building the theatre is a huge undertaking, and has not been without challenges. However, construction is on target and rehearsals are well under way, rushing towards opening night on February 19.
‘‘One of the great joys of working in theatre is the constant challenges you face every day,’’ Gregory says. ‘‘But the measure of a great theatre company is how you respond to challenges.’’