Romeo And Juliet

Time for our annual pilgrimage north, and this time I’ve organised things so that we don’t have to spend too much time hanging around. We caught a 10:45 flight up to Auckland, picked up a rental car at the airport, and drove straight to the Pop-Up Globe in Ellerslie, for the two o’clock matinee showing of Romeo And Juliet. See?

We were there by one o’clock, which gave us plenty of time for a leisurely lunch, and a glass of wine before the show. We’d booked early, so had a choice of seats, and decided this year to look out over the other side of the stage to where we’d been for the previous two years. Still in the middle tier, but stage left instead of stage right.

The production followed a similar format to previous years’ shows – the main actors in period garb, whilst others (notably the gang members, soldiery etc.) were in modern attire and carried automatic weapons instead of swords. Juliet was a bit screechy and rattled through her lines like she was late and wanted to get home in time to watch Shortland Street, or something. Amongst the fighting there was a fair amount of gore, and it appeared that some of the groundlings weren’t prepared to be showered with fake blood (unlike when we went to Julius Caesar, when they seemed to positively revel in it, deliberately wearing white t-shirts so it would show up!) Other than that, there were no surprises, and the play wound down to its predictable end.

It hadn’t been a sell-out gig so the crowds in the car park weren’t as bad as I’d feared, and we were able to make a speedy getaway, straight to the car ferry at Half Moon Bay. The ferry arrived, and we prepared to be called onto the ship. Nothing happened…followed by more nothing. Then a second, larger ferry hove into view. “Ah! Perhaps this is our ferry!” I said, and this did indeed turn out to be the case. “Cutting it a bit fine for loading, though”, I thought…but no! This ferry is of such a size that we didn’t have to go through the rigmarole of reversing on that we did last time. We just drove up to the back of the ferry, turned around, and drove back to the front, facing out! Genius!

Not only was loading and unloading much quicker, the journey was too, and we were off the ferry after ¾ of an hour, and driving up to our accommodation on Waiheke. We’re staying at Blue Birds studio just of the main Ocean View Road, at the top end of Oneroa. We met the owners, sorted ourselves out, then walked into town to our pre-booked dinner at Aperitivo, where we enjoyed terakihi, gnocchi, a cheese platter and some lovely wine, as the sun set.

Tomorrow: adventures!