In 1961 actors stepped on the stage at the Globe Theatre for the first time.
The small theatre built at the home of Patric and Rosalie Carey began its journey to becoming Dunedin’s home of Shakespeare as Juliet called ‘‘O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?’’
Back then, the production kept very much to the traditional Shakespeare production recreating the feeling of 14th or 15th century Verona, Italy.
Sixty-five years later, that same production will hit the Globe stage but with a difference.
Director Brent Caldwell has chosen to give a nod to the past by setting it in 1961 Otago, the year of that first production.
‘‘To me it’s translated beautifully.’’
Instead of two feuding Italian families, it features two feuding Otago farming families.
‘‘That’s probably not too hard to imagine if you think of small closed country communities and fallouts over boundary fences and wandering stock and what have you or even religious differences in the post-World War New Zealand.’’
Juliet is turning 18 and will be presented at a debutante ball, something that was an important right of passage in 1961.
‘‘I remember even in the ’70s my older sisters all were presented as debs and that was where I got that idea from.’’
The main setting is a pub owned by the Capulets and run by Tybalt.
‘‘The Montagues are kind of friendly, jocular, sheep-farming, duck shooters, the Capulets are the harder, cattle-running, pig-hunting sort of tougher people in the community.’’
‘‘I thought it was fun, I liked the idea, it was an imaginative thing to do’’ Stevenson says.
‘‘Brent’s concepts are so exciting really,’’ Stedman says.
Stevenson, who worked with Patric building seats for the theatre, had headed to The Globe in his early 20s after getting turned down by the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation. He got a role as an extra in the first show.
He thinks perhaps his work in theatre helped him succeed at his second interview with NZBC and start his long broadcasting career.
He describes the latest production as more ‘‘Country Calendar than Verona’’ but he believes the Careys would still appreciate it.
‘‘I think Patric would have accepted it. I think Rosalie might have tutted and fumed a little but it would have depended on the performance, if it had the life, I think she would have appreciated it.’’
‘‘I just sort of felt that it was great to be able to rekindle that connection.’’
It is also a chance to see his granddaughter Maegan Stedman-Ashford tread the boards in the same production.
‘‘I love that. I’m really quite proud of that girl.’’
But until this production came up, he had never told her about the family acting tradition which goes back to his mother’s parents who were professional actors in Australia.
‘‘It runs real deep in our family. Mother played the nurse in Romeo and Juliet. And she was in a lot of productions. She was a very, very good actor. And so it was in her blood. She dragged us off into the theatre.’’
Stedman-Ashford will play Tybalt and has enjoyed talking to her grandfather about the production and discovering her great grandmother Peggy and great uncle Michael were involved.
‘‘You can’t get rid of us. We’ve stuck. I started getting into theatre without knowing that there was a familial connection to it.
‘‘So when my granddad found out that I’d started doing stuff at the Playhouse as a kid, he was chuffed, he was over the moon.’’
‘‘It’s always quite a fun time. So as soon as I heard they were doing Romeo and Juliet, I knew I had to be in.’’
Playing a villain was also something she looks forward to as she does not often get a chance to play those roles.
‘‘So it’s very nice to step back into those shoes and not have to worry too much about your character’s motivations and how they’re feeling. Because the majority of the time, it’s like, angry. You get to channel all your anger.’’
Caldwell says it has also been an opportunity to uncover the Globe’s built-in balcony Juliet window.
‘‘It’s behind these wooden panels, if you cut the panels away, there’s a lovely lattice balcony rail so we’ve exposed that for this particular show.’’
Despite the more modern setting of the play, including a 1960s music soundtrack, the language remains all Shakespeare’s although it has been trimmed of more than a thousand lines to keep it within two hours.
There will still be the fight scenes and they have engaged fight co-ordinators Ashley Stewart and Andrew Brinsley-Pirie to make sure they are as realistic and visceral as they can be.
They also have an intimacy co-ordinator, Chelsea McRae, to help with the more intimate scenes of the love story.
‘‘In the past it might have been, well just get on and do it, whereas now as a teaching and learning theatre we’re making sure that all our actors get to work with people who know what they’re doing and can make them feel safe in what they’re doing.’’
It is a young team, including costume designer Maggie Holtham, set designer, artist, Amber Munro and choreographer Tobias Devereux, which is part of Caldwell’s aim to inspire a new generation of people to support and join the Globe.
‘‘We’ll do a Q&A with the kids and let them have that opportunity to speak to the actors because I think that’s the way forward for us as a theatre is to connect to our community and provide pathways.’’
To see
Romeo and Juliet, Globe Theatre, May 21-May 30.
