\nTempest<\/span><\/i> is a play for which it is possible to feel
\nreal affection. In this it is, of course, unlike the tragedies: you can’t
\nimagine having warm, happy, cheerful or loving feelings about Macbeth, Hamlet <\/i>or Othello<\/i>. (There was a famous American Yiddish theatre production
\nof King Lear<\/i> – the moral of it being,
\n“You bring them up, feed them, clothe them; then look what they do to you in
\nyour old age!” You can perhaps conceive of feeling affectionate in a superior,
\namused way about such a staging.) It’s possible to love<\/i> the tragedies, as it is The
\nMerchant of Venice<\/i>, Romeo and Juliet<\/i>
\nand several of the comedies and histories – and as it is not, say, the Taming of the Shrew<\/i> or Timon of Athens.<\/i>
Why Kirsty Bushell as “Sebastian”<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It’s also obviously about the dangers of (The The It works a treat with this (mostly) modern The comic duo, Felix Hayes’s just-right This is only the second or third time I’ve That wonderful actor, Nicholas Day, here <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Tempest is a play for which it is possible to feel real affection. In this it is, of course, unlike the tragedies: you can’t imagine having warm, happy, cheerful or loving feelings about Macbeth, Hamlet or Othello. (There was a famous American Yiddish theatre production of King Lear – the moral of it being, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbv6zV-c6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nam I fond of The Tempest<\/i>? Not because
\nit suits my political feelings. I can see merit in the interpretation that says
\nthe play’s point is anti-colonialism – it’s a reading that fits. But it can’t be the whole story, and making
\nit so has resulted in any number of poor productions that I’ve seen. The Tempest<\/i> is too much a tale of the
\nnatural order being subverted and restored – of dukes being dukes and princes,
\nprinces, and of Miranda being a natural aristocrat, though all the home she
\nknows is the desert isle – to impose a single ideological straitjacket on its
\nplot and subplots.![\"female](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/female%20sebastian.png?resize=125%2C188\")
<\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
\nnature – the storm; and about the unnatural – Caliban, Sycorax his dam,
\nProspero’s spells, and Ariel’s capabilities, for all that he is wholly lovable.
\nProspero’s love for his daughter is genuine, as is hers and Ferdinand’s, and The Tempest<\/i> is a love story\/comedy –
\nwith some funny lines, especially for Stephano and Trinculo. The felicitous
\nlanguage of the play is another attraction for its devotees – who ever tires of
\nhearing “Our revels now are ended,”
\nor “O brave new world”?
\nsole unsatisfying feature of Thomas Ad\u00e8s’s opera, The Tempest<\/i>, is the loss of some of these lines, made hard to hear
\nby the soprano’s soaring above the stave notes.)
\nRoyal Shakespeare Company has found a relatively new way to approach the play,
\nby making it part of what they call “Shakespeare’s Shipwreck Trilogy” or “What
\nCountry Friends is This?” Using a specially formed (and talented) repertory
\ncompany and much of Jon Bausor’s set for the other two, The Comedy of Errors <\/i>(which I’ve seen and relished) and Twelfth Night<\/i> (not yet seen), this
\ngrouping of the plays zeroes in on the consequences of the initial calamity in
\neach.
\ndress Tempest<\/i>, partly because the
\ncasting is so fine. Even that wimp, Ferdinand, is here given some smoochy
\nromantic street-cred by Solomon Israel. Emily Taafe is a convincing teen-aged
\nMiranda. Director David Farr has given Sebastian a gender-reassignment, and it
\nworks. Kirsty Bushell not only distinguishes herself by her slink dress, from
\nthe her co-conspirator, but also Sebastian’s oaths and bitching stand out from
\nthe others’ mutterings, coming as they do from a woman.
\ncamp Trinculo and Bruce Mackinnon’s leering Stephano, are ace. Amer Hlehel
\nmakes Caliban the Other, the foreigner in our midst, the Neanderthal up against
\nHomo sapiens<\/i>. Best though are the
\ntwinned Ariel of Sandy Grierson and Prospero of Jonathan Slinger, particularly
\nin the second half. They are dressed alike in distressed suits, with lapels
\nrevealing the canvas substructure, and identical close-cropped haircuts and
\nshiny makeup. (The attendant spirits are similarly costumed and coiffed.) The
\ndirectorial genius is to have seen that it is their near-identity that makes
\nProspero’s powers seem credible, as we already believe that Ariel is a spirit.
\nseen a production of The Tempest<\/i> in
\nwhich the Act IV masque works as an integral part of the play. It succeeds
\nhere, too, because of the twinning – Iris, Ceres and Juno are just the sort of
\ngirls you expect this pair to hang out with.
\nhas the part of Gonzalo, and performs it beautifully. It might seem a little
\nunrewarding. But as my mentor, Harry Levin, taught us in his Harvard seminar,
\nGonzalo’s speech describing his Utopian vision is the beating heart of the
\nplay.