Five minutes acting as Lady Macbeth going crazy was a big ask for Natalee Gaston.
And it was the Year 13 Sacred Heart Girls' College student's performance in a five-minute Shakespeare dramatisation in the Sheila Winn Taranaki regional that led to Natalee's selection to travel to Sydney in January
one of only four selected from throughout New Zealand.
Ironically, Natalee and her Year 13 classmate Victoria Wilkinson entered the regional as a joke.
Natalee played the manipulative 40-year old Lady Macbeth whose many life experiences included persuading her husband to murder the king.
"In five minutes I played Lady Macbeth where all her life experiences came together."
Victoria played the doctor who narrated to the audience Lady Macbeth's torment as random thoughts from her evil actions came back to haunt her mind.
Marie Hunneyball is the college's new drama teacher and four hours before the college girls went on stage she watched their performance.
"She taught me about rocking and told me my thoughts would be random and my personality would be split as my mind went crazy."
An hour before their performance Natalee took the advice on board and got into character. "I had to really think about how I was going to act," Natalee said.
But Natalee left the stage disappointed in her performance. She felt she had not 'done enough'.
However, 'less is more' and the two teenagers won the regional.
They went to Wellington to compete against the Shakespearean acts of 200 others from around the country; an experience Natalee said was amazing.
They won the Best Student Directed five-minute Scene, and then Natalee was selected with three others two male and another female to travel to Sydney in January, to attend the Shakespeare Down Under, with actors from around Australia.
They will explore different Shakespeare characters, and as they compete, a cast to play Lady Macbeth will be selected.
Natalee likes Shakespeare but she's not passionate about it, although she agrees anything can happen when she goes to Sydney.
Sacred Heart Girls'College will help Natalee to fundraise for her seven-day trip in January, before she heads off to Victoria University to study for a Bachelor in Tourism and Marketing degree.
