discussed the difficult nature of coming to grips with Shakespeare’s most elusive of plays:
When we see how nothing in the play is what it seems, how it takes place on an island and not on an island, during a day and not during a day, with a tempest that sets off a series of events that are still within a tempest even when the storm is done, that the charming pastoral for children naturally encompasses rape, murder, conspiracy and violence; when we begin to unearth the themes that Shakespeare so carefully buried, we see that it is his final statement, and that it deals with the whole condition of man. 25
A play of infinite possibilities, notoriously difficult to stage effectively,
The Tempest
offers a multitude of choices for its director and a conundrum for actors seeking to build dimension from Shakespeare’s enigmatic characterizations. Shakespeare scholar Christine Dymkowski outlines some of the play’s dualities:
It seems unusually elastic, its almost miraculous flexibility allowing it to embody radically different interpretations, characterisations and emphases. Prospero and Caliban can not only exchange places as hero and villain, but also vie with each other to occupy both places at once. Ariel can be female or male, a willing or an unwilling servant. Miranda can seem an innocent maiden, a hoydenish tomboy or a rebellious teenager. Antonio can seek forgiveness from his brother or remain sinister until the end. Stephano and Trinculo can present themselves as harmless buffoons or dangerous louts. The island can appear a lush paradise or a barren desert or both at once. The narrative can speak for or against racism or turn into a psychological thriller. The play’s final effect can be one of decay and despair or renewal and hope. 26
All interpreters of the play, whether directors in the rehearsal room or critics in the study, have to address difficult questions about the portrayal of Prospero, the nature of his “rough magic,” and how he interacts with the other characters, most importantly Ariel and Caliban.
Designing the Enchanted Isle
In the theater or on-screen, a key interpretive choice for director and designer is the representation of the setting in which the action takes place: the island that is the location for the entire action after the initial shipboard storm. The play is readily transportable to different settings and periods. The island’s imprecise location makes it a place of the imagination; perhaps more than any other Shakespearean location, it is open to multitudinous interpretations.
The Tempest
has been set in all the continents of the world, and even in outer space.
Modern directors have moved away from the nineteenth-century taste for spectacular stage pictures, and considered alternative means of depicting the island’s magical environment. So, for instance, Rupert Goold’s 2006 RSC production achieved many notable effects, not least through its surprising setting:
The shipwrecked nobles have washed up in the Arctic or some more metaphoric, spiritually desolate realm … during thestorm, grey waves crash on a huge projection scrim, a radar dial transforms into a porthole-cum-magic circle through which we spy below-decks, then a black screen whirls with white flecks as if charting a tornado or brainwave interference. It’s a startling vision, as is the panorama of jagged ice that comprises Prospero’s isle and evokes Caspar David Friedrich’s bleak painting,
The Wreck of the Hope
. 27
Just over forty years before, the designer for the RSC’s 1963 production, Abd’Elkader Farrah, created an abstract world of “strange suns and moons, space-creatures who act as Ariel’s assistants; trapdoors by the dozen, ever-opening to emit some fresh wonder, or walls that fall, crashing, at a wave of Prospero’s wand.” 28 He believed that elaborate settings were no longer appropriate in the cinematic age: “I could have conjured up a romantic sea-storm: wind, rain, ship cracking,
When we see how nothing in the play is what it seems, how it takes place on an island and not on an island, during a day and not during a day, with a tempest that sets off a series of events that are still within a tempest even when the storm is done, that the charming pastoral for children naturally encompasses rape, murder, conspiracy and violence; when we begin to unearth the themes that Shakespeare so carefully buried, we see that it is his final statement, and that it deals with the whole condition of man. 25
A play of infinite possibilities, notoriously difficult to stage effectively,
The Tempest
offers a multitude of choices for its director and a conundrum for actors seeking to build dimension from Shakespeare’s enigmatic characterizations. Shakespeare scholar Christine Dymkowski outlines some of the play’s dualities:
It seems unusually elastic, its almost miraculous flexibility allowing it to embody radically different interpretations, characterisations and emphases. Prospero and Caliban can not only exchange places as hero and villain, but also vie with each other to occupy both places at once. Ariel can be female or male, a willing or an unwilling servant. Miranda can seem an innocent maiden, a hoydenish tomboy or a rebellious teenager. Antonio can seek forgiveness from his brother or remain sinister until the end. Stephano and Trinculo can present themselves as harmless buffoons or dangerous louts. The island can appear a lush paradise or a barren desert or both at once. The narrative can speak for or against racism or turn into a psychological thriller. The play’s final effect can be one of decay and despair or renewal and hope. 26
All interpreters of the play, whether directors in the rehearsal room or critics in the study, have to address difficult questions about the portrayal of Prospero, the nature of his “rough magic,” and how he interacts with the other characters, most importantly Ariel and Caliban.
Designing the Enchanted Isle
In the theater or on-screen, a key interpretive choice for director and designer is the representation of the setting in which the action takes place: the island that is the location for the entire action after the initial shipboard storm. The play is readily transportable to different settings and periods. The island’s imprecise location makes it a place of the imagination; perhaps more than any other Shakespearean location, it is open to multitudinous interpretations.
The Tempest
has been set in all the continents of the world, and even in outer space.
Modern directors have moved away from the nineteenth-century taste for spectacular stage pictures, and considered alternative means of depicting the island’s magical environment. So, for instance, Rupert Goold’s 2006 RSC production achieved many notable effects, not least through its surprising setting:
The shipwrecked nobles have washed up in the Arctic or some more metaphoric, spiritually desolate realm … during thestorm, grey waves crash on a huge projection scrim, a radar dial transforms into a porthole-cum-magic circle through which we spy below-decks, then a black screen whirls with white flecks as if charting a tornado or brainwave interference. It’s a startling vision, as is the panorama of jagged ice that comprises Prospero’s isle and evokes Caspar David Friedrich’s bleak painting,
The Wreck of the Hope
. 27
Just over forty years before, the designer for the RSC’s 1963 production, Abd’Elkader Farrah, created an abstract world of “strange suns and moons, space-creatures who act as Ariel’s assistants; trapdoors by the dozen, ever-opening to emit some fresh wonder, or walls that fall, crashing, at a wave of Prospero’s wand.” 28 He believed that elaborate settings were no longer appropriate in the cinematic age: “I could have conjured up a romantic sea-storm: wind, rain, ship cracking,
Similar Books
