Pop-Up Globe Theatre, Ellerslie, Auckland

 Had a great time with my two eldest at the Pop-Up Globe theatre last night in watching the evening show of "Much Ado About Nothing" one of Shakespeare's comedies as I had wanted to watch "Othello" having studied it at Uni but with tickets selling fast thought to go to a comedy instead to check out the staging etc.

We were in for a treat as the theatre mirrors closely what the staging must have been like for the original Globe theatre in English back in the 1600s when Shakespeare was at his height. There were about four tiers of seating, starting with comfortable right at the top with a bird's eye view, then seats with backs and those with no backs right down to the standing room at the very bottom which they called the "groundlings" on the tickets. Very much to do with English socio-economic structures back in the day.

The play itself was surprisingly with many Pasifika themes: one of the main characters was Samoan  who spoke Samoan, at times, and only those of us who were Samoan could laugh at what he said and the other main character was Tonga who danced a special Tongan dance at the wedding. They also incorporated machetes, live banana trees as props, the women wore Pasifika type jewellery with shells and seeds/beads. Feathered headdress which very much reminded me of Samoan tuiga that women would wear for special occasions.

We constantly laughed and there was a lot of audience interaction although there was one character who I thought went overboard and we'd cringe whenever he went into the crowd. But a really neat evening and brought back memories of when I used to write, director and produce high school plays and with the launch of my first Shakespearean adaption of "A Midsummer Night's dream", I am thinking of adapting one of his tragedies to a Pasifika setting as well in the near future.

I would highly recommend watching one of these plays whilst the season is still on and am contemplating to go again and watch one of the tragedies and possibly to see "Othello" and how the play is translated into the pop-up Globe theatre. Never a dull moment...