Review The Tempest

The Tempest
by William Shakespeare

Fantasy Island
https://www.rsc.org.uk/

A harassed magician and ousted ruler Prospero (Simon Russell Beale), with an impatient Miranda (Jenny Rainsford) straining at the leash, a far more patient but troubled bondservant in the spirit Ariel (Mark Quartley) and a beastly Caliban (Joe Dixon) all uneasily share an island in The Tempest.

And now they're joined by a digital world created by Intel and The Imaginarium Studio and projected on to the large Barbican stage.

Directed by Gregory Doran, towering undulating images dwarf the actors. Otherwise the design by Stephen Brimson Lewis has on each side of the stage half of a ship's two tier skeletal hull, two splays of ribs with an expanse between.

The Tempest would seem like the ideal Shakespeare play for digital special effects. Yet we found several problems with them. They interrupted the rhythm of the play which made some of the real life performances unfairly, we think, seem over-emphatic. Sight gags which would have gone with the flow if there were no gizmos then also feel inserted rather than organic to the play.

It is the quiet moments that work best - especially between Beale's tetchy Prospero and Quartly's thoughtful and elegant Ariel as the latter works towards his freedom while measuring his master's emotions and keeping within his boundaries.

Otherwise Jenny Rainsford makes for a feisty Miranda who has outgrown her father's admonishings and the island. Simon Trinder's white-face, tartan-trousered clown and James Hayes's mutiny-on-the-bounty Stephano's butler make a  comely enough comic duo.

Joseph Mydell's Gonzalo is also distinctive as, having been Prospero and Miranda's saviour, he is also a court politician looking to retain the status quo. We weren't so sure at first about Joe Dixon's Caliban, wrapped in a cockroach-type carapace, but ultimately the severance of his relationship with Prospero has a searing quality.

The special effects?  We didn't see the cinema screenings but it struck us on screen they may have worked better for us. Even though there was a difference made between the scenes of humans and spirits on the island, the masque interludes and the final moments where Prospero abjures his magic, it felt overloaded on stage. It is an experiment worth doing, and doubtless there's a learning curve which will bear fruit, but the play's the thing and we give an amber/green light.

Review The Tempest

Shakespeare's enchanted isle weaves its rich and strange spell on Carolin Kopplin in an enticingly musical, cross-gender production.

The Tempest
by William Shakespeare

Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered
http://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/

This pared-down version of William Shakespeare's final play provides a rather superficial but still engaging production with some outstanding performances.

Actor musicians greet the audience as they seat themselve on three sides of stage, providing an exotic and welcoming atmosphere. Then the drumming ceases abruptly as Prospero (Sarah Malin) makes her entrance for her first monologue.

The sorcereress, Prospero, ruler of this strange island, is the rightful Duchess of Milan, overthrown by her treacherous brother Antonio (Gemma Lawrence) and his accomplice King Alonso of Naples (Stanton Plummer-Cambridge).

When Prospero learns that her enemies are sailing past the island she conjures up a storm to shipwreck them with the help Ariel (Peter Caulfield), one of the spirits on the island who was imprisoned by the witch Sycorax before Prospero freed him to use his services for her own needs.

Directed by Amy Draper, this production proffers a fresh approach combining Shakespeare's language with beguiling dance and music, creating a magical world solely with percussion (excellently performed by Andrew Meredith) and sound effects (music Candida Caldicot) on an otherwise bare stage. Yet this version's short running time leaves very little room for character development which works against the performers.

The cast, save for Sarah Malin and Peter Caulfield, all play a variety of characters. Minor costume changes imply sudden switches into different characters which can, at times, be somewhat distracting but are usually well-executed.

Malin's Prospero rules with a quiet authority, using the graceful Ariel and the crude Caliban at her pleasure. Caulfield's Ariel is a delicate, vulnerable creature. Yet he remains detached and understated, with a sweetly ethereal singing voice, moving swiftly across the stage despite being wrapped in a strait jacket.

Meanwhile Plummer-Cambridge's Caliban is a damaged creature, dethroned like Prospero and therefore bitter and resentful, yet too ignorant to progress. Benjamin Cawley's Ferdinand is so full of life that Miranda, played by Gemma Lawrence, quite understandably falls head over heels in love with him.

The clown scenes involving Trincula (Lawrence again) and Stephano (Cawley) are well devised and the comedy works, particularly the image of the four-legged monster created by Caliban and Trincula.

Another highlight is the wedding dance performed by Prospero, Miranda and Ferdinand and accompanied by a myriad of invisible inhabitants of the island. Nevertheless, the most touching scenes belong to Ariel and Prospero, defining their unique relationship. So, even if this truncated version has its flaws, there is still enough humanity and enchantment to merit an amber/green light. 

Review The Tempest

The Tempest
by William Shakespeare

Braces, Soil And Tears
http://www.the-print-room.org/

For its first foray into Shakespeare, The Print Room, itself a magical, eccentric theatre capped by a cupola, has chosen one of the most magical of the bard's plays, The Tempest.

This production of The Tempest, directed by Simon Usher, certainly has its eccentricities and, on rare occasions, brings magic to the Notting Hill venue. Yet at other times, it remains as solidly earth-bound as the soil covering the ragged stage.

The story is archetypal - a Duke, usurped by his brother but saved by a courtier, is washed ashore on an island where he brings up his daughter, unware of her noble lineage, while exercising his power over two supernatural creatures. For this Duke has long made a study of a (never appearing) book of spells and possesses a magical cloak and staff with which he can control his island domain.

Fate - or is  it magic? - intervenes and the play starts with the conspirators, those also who acquiesced to the coup, albeit an innocent prince among them, and the faithful courier shipwrecked on the island 12 years after the enforced exile of the rightful Duke of Milan.

Yet we feel the abstract representation of the shipwreck, with a rope laid on the floor and heads ducked in buckets of the water, may have totally befuddled those who are newcomers to The Tempest.  The concept behind this version of the play remained elusive for us, although we noted how the director references Italian and Swedish translations and performances of Shakespeare in the programme.

It's the younger generation who emerge in the sharpest focus in the lens of The Print Room's production, even if this attractive interpretation is rather thrown away by the play's end. 

Bearded Kevin McMonagle, clad at first in muted gray high waisted tweed trousers, braces and shirt before he dons his enchanted seaweed cloak, is a strangely subdued. softly spoken Scottish Prospero. He's almost bureaucratic in his influence on the course of events, rather than enchantingly transformative.

Indeed further on in the play, we did wonder whether we were inhabiting the psychic space of Prospero, an old man imagining his island realm. Certainly there is a mash up in the costumes spanning the centuries and, we think, in acting styles.

Charlotte Brimble, her tones strictly received pronounciation with maybe the slightest trace of her father's burr, is at first a sturdy, Robinson Crusoe-like Miranda in grubby shorn denim trousers and top, a child of the earth. She's unused to the male gaze until the arrival of scarlet-jacketed Ferdinand (Hugh John who brings a much-needed clarity and vitality), the guileless King of Naples' son.

Unless that is, we include the unwanted attentions of Caliban (Billy Seymour), himself the monstrous "mooncalf" child of a witch and dubious paternity.

Prospero's treatment of Caliban, who comes over as a vulnerable, almost Frankenstein-like innocent, also seems wholly dubious in this version with the previous kindly treatment of Caliban betrayed by his  attempted sexual assault of Miranda downplayed.

The other supernatural creature on the isle is the enslaved Ariel pleading for her liberty - Kristin Winters in pure white tunic as if stepped out of 1920s' abstract art. As the tale unwinds, she seems more and more drawn into an early silent movie, all of which comes into its own at the beginning of the second act in a stunning visual effect.

Indeed with consistently beautiful lighting from Ben Omerod and a backdrop of waves and sky, easily becoming an embedded stage within a stage, from set designer Lee Newby, there are some gorgeous moments, particularly the masque sequences.

However the moments of beauty sometimes suffer then from over-playing and too often strike one as parachuted in. Some of the relationships also are not clear. For example, while Antonio (Callum Dixon who doubles as washed-up butler Stephano) is obviously the man who deposed Prospero, for someone who doesn't know the story, it's less than easy to understand that they are brothers.

Still, while some of the verse speaking seems to take too literally Ariel's promise to carry out Prospero's demands "- to - the - syllable", there are some pleasures.

John as Ferdinand sparks the play into more supple patterns of speech. Stephen Beard's white-haired professorial Gonzalo, Prospero's saviour years before, also has a naturalness in his delivery, overcoming the somewhat cryptic staging around him.

Paul Hamilton (who doubles as Alonso, King of Naples) also makes the cut as gangly beanie-wearing jester Trinculo. Community actor dreadlocked Herman Stephens has a distinctive, lucid debut on the professional stage as the mariner finally bringing good news.

But themes embracing, for example, the complexity of freedom and oppression, which should be distilled in a famous short episode where Ferdinand and Miranda suddenly appear playing chess, often feel truncated.

So it's an amber light for a curious curate's egg, rather muffled production redeemed by a few interesting design and staging choices and several engaging performances.