“If music be the food of love, play on! Give me excess of it!” 

And so with Orsino’s opening lines, we were immersed into the world of Shakespeare and let ourselves be transported back in time to the Elizabethan era.

On Tuesday, 12th April, a group of intrepid Year 12 English and Production Studies students made their way by minivan to the colossus of Auckland. We left after school on the Tuesday and spent our first of two nights at Rangatahi Marae which is situated on the grounds of Taupo-nui-a-Tia College.

The next morning students were given a couple of hours of free time to go shopping (the girls) and sightseeing (the boys). After some lunch back at the wharekai, we jumped into the minivans and made our way up to Auckland. A quick bite to eat was needed before we took our seats for the 7pm performance of one of Shakespeare’s more well known and, unequivocally, most entertaining of his comedies, “Twelfth Night.”

Seeing the play, however, was not the only purpose of the trip as we were also there to look at how it was produced in terms of aspects such as staging, lighting, costuming, sound and acting. But what made it even more of a unique experience was that we were watching the play performed in a full scale, working replica of the original Globe Theatre where all of Shakespeare’s plays were first performed.

All in all, a very enjoyable time was had and I would like to acknowledge and thank the students who came on the trip as well as Ms Reid and Whaea Mere who accompanied me.

And as we have just recently heard news that, due to its first season success, the Pop-up Globe Theatre is to return with a new set of plays for early 2017, I will leave this to be ruminated upon and ask the question of next year’s Level 3 Advanced English class, “Could this be us?”

“O beware, my Lord, of jealousy.

It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock

The meat it feeds on.”

The Pop-up Globe Queen’s Company presents Shakespeare’s tragedy, Othello, at the Pop-up Globe in Auckland. Othello is one of Shakespeare’s greatest psychological thrillers. In a theatre of war, a great general is brought down by the power of his own love and the prejudice of others…..

Mrs Ursula Belk
HoF Languages