A slightly edited version of this review will appear this winter in Shakespeare Bulletin, alongside reviews of As You Like It (Bridge Project) and Measure for Measure (Theatre for a New Audience). Anybody see any of these productions last winter?
How many versions of Prospero have we each seen or imagined? Even though we no long believe the old stories about the play as Shakespeare’s self-portrait, there’s something about this familiar figure—magician, teacher, slave-holder, father—that carries the over-ripe taste of the familiar. Even very strong performances by big-name actors—Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan—can, in retrospect, fade into the role rather than putting an individual stamp upon it. Stephen Dillane’s Prospero, while very faithful to the text, was probably the most distinctive I’ve seen. He played the magician as threadbare and scholarly, deeply engaged with his inner spirits. He arrived on stage for the first scene before the house lights went down and was distractedly reading a book. Sam Mendes’s direction emphasized Prospero’s control of the island by having all the play’s action take place inside the sand circle of his art, with the actors not performing in each scene sitting motionless around the edge of the stage like marionettes without strings. Despite his control inside the circle, Dillane’s Prospero didn’t feel all-powerful. He paced urgently around the circle in the storm scene (the impact of which was slightly muted by having the wizard visible from the start); he seemed angry and impatient in the “great globe itself” speech (4.1); and he needed to blindfold Miranda in 1.2. The production emphasized both Prospero’s power and his human frustration with that power. He controlled everything inside his circle, but that circle itself, which seemed to represent a navigator’s compass and a child’s sand box as well as a conjuror’s circle, was frustratingly small. There was a lot outside that Prospero could not dominate.
The empty recesses of the stage, filled with the slumping figures of actors not participating in Prospero’s action, testified to the limits of his power. This part of the stage contained perhaps two inches of water, as if it were the edge of the ocean itself, the shores of which marked the limits of human and dramatic magic. This opacity and emptiness helped explain Prospero’s sometimes perplexing anxiety, his worries about managing a series of events that he seems always to have well in hand. In Mendes’s production, there was always something visible on stage outside of his control. The emotional urgency of Dillane’s performance finally burst through in the epilogue, for which he stripped himself down to an undershirt and boxer shorts and spat out his lines in a mixture of contempt and deep need: “Let your indulgence set me free.” I’ve never been so moved by those very familiar lines, never seen a Prospero who so desperately needed indulgence.
Not everything in this production was as strong as Dillane’s performance. Juliet Rylance’s Miranda seemed a bit insipid, as if, lacking the physical and dramatic range of her Rosalind, she could find little to do with the part. Edward Bennett, who was so striking as Oliver, played Ferdinand with much less punch. Christian Camargo’s Ariel wore some great costumes, especially a striking full-sized harpy get-up with black wings, but even though the relationship between Prospero and his magical servant seemed to be at the heart of the production, the spirit himself seemed static. Ron Cephas Jones’s Caliban presented himself, uncomfortably, as a kind of natural slave, ceding the play’s emotional center to Ariel’s claims upon his master. It was, above all, a production that revolved around its lead actor; any Tempest must be Prospero-centric, but none of the other actors, not even the fine Alvin Epstein as Gonzalo, managed to escape his overshadowing presence.
The one element of the production that rivaled Dillane was the set design and the lighting. The circle-plus-ocean design of the stage managed to convey Prospero’s near-omnipotence inside his magic realm and also the vast emptiness outside it. The staging of Ariel’s song (“Full fathom five…”) in 1.2 was especially memorable. The stage lights glimmered on the water that surrounded the sand circle. Prospero’s urgent pacing around his circle slowed down. Inside, at the center, Ariel gathered Ferdinand in a seductive and constrictive embrace, while the spirit, along with the on-stage chorus of women who would later play the goddesses in the masque, sang to him. The effect was other-worldly. It was as close to a vision of the bottom of the sea as I’ve ever seen on stage. Five fathoms down, with a King’s body that is not really there, Prospero showed the prince and the audience a vision of dramatic transformation and its threatening consequences.
During the last two weeks I have read about a dozen theater reviews written by you, while I was preparing for my oral report, and it brought some memories and some thoughts. I cannot say that this genre is new for me because my mom is a theater critic in Russia, and reviews like this one is a part of her job. Therefore I myself saw a rather big number of plays, and my mom and I spent hours and hours discussing the performances we saw…
So many plays, so many different interpretations… Being a big fan of Moliere, I once saw his Tartuffe in a very modern production, which included odd costumes, extra cues and extraordinary musical accompaniment. I was very disappointed and honestly quite angry. At that time I was studying Moliere’s plays at my world literature class, carefully exploring phrase by phrase, analyzing each word, each line… And suddenly I felt like all that poetic beauty and deep philosophic meaning disappeared, were ruined by the popular modern interpretation that I saw on the stage. At the same time, I couldn’t help thinking that in a certain sense the producer had the right to change a classical treat of the play and the characters. A play, obviously, is written to be played, Characters and Actors are created to be acted. In novels we read: “She blushed and said…” or “He looked at her intently, grinned, and said…” In a play, we only read the lines, and we can only guess when she could blush, and when he could grin; and I suppose everybody sees it differently.
Nevertheless, I have my own stereotypes of the characters, and truth to say when my stereotype doesn’t match the producer’s character, I get quite upset. While reading your words “Juliet Rylance’s Miranda seemed a bit insipid…” I am feeling that “your” Miranda is different. My question is, can we blame producers and actors for their interpretations? Is a play written to be played or to be read? Do we get an impression of a character by What he is saying or also, How he is saying?
In the end, a little about The Tempest. I am browsing through a Longman World Literature Anthology. There is only one play there that represents Shakespeare – The Tempest.
I was wondering, Katje, why you spent so much time with my theater reviews, which I think of as a pretty small part of my writing. You’re right to focus on the gap between text & performance. Ideally a strong performance helps change the way we read a text. I suppose what I was complaining about with Rylance’s Miranda is that I saw so little in it, so little to change my understanding of the part or the play. Perhaps our 21c culture isn’t as admiring of naive virginity as Shakespeare’s was (or wanted to be).
You raise another interesting question: Is a play written to be read or performed? One way to answer this, in re Shakespeare, is to follow the money: Shakespeare was a sharer in the Globe Theater, so he got paid through ticket sales. Most of his plays (inc The Tempest) were only printed after his death, and early modern authors tended not to make much money from book sales. (Profits went to the printer/publishers who paid for the press and the paper, which was by far the most expensive part of book-making during that period.)
Well, first of all, I have a personal interest in theater itself and theater reviews. Second, it didn’t really take much time to read them, because the style is “light” and the reviews are not long. Third, I downloaded the theater reviews together with your critical essays, articles and book reviews… so why would I skip them? 🙂
So many thoughts! I feel very strongly that Shakespeare’s plays (and I suppose by extension all plays) are first and foremost to be performed, and secondarily to be studied. But that’s a simplistic answer, really. Because I also passionately believe that productions benefit tremendously when the plays are studied. That’s the philosophy around which we’ve built our company and in every production we do, we require a great deal of in-depth study from all of our actors. Otherwise, you run the risk of producing a very flat production. On the other hand, I think if you only sit with the book, you lose out on the shared, theatrical experience.
I’m going to couch my next comments by saying that I have supremely high standards when I attend the theatre, and I was really expecting a great deal of the Bridge Project productions. (But when I love something, I will rave about it as passionately as when I hate something, I absolutely eviscerate it. Ask me about the production of The Tempest I saw at American Shakespeare Center!)
Having said all this … I was really disappointed in the Bridge Project — mostly because I didn’t like Sam Mendes’s direction, his handling of the text and his actors. The pacing was very slow — literally the speech itself. Tons of pauses and that was so modern, and also indicative of his time spent directing films, I think. When speaking Shakespeare, all the thoughts are there and if you take a pause, you better earn it! And there were just pauses all over the place I could have driven a bus through. It becomes really difficult to follow the text, even if you know it really well.
Aside from that, the gentleman who played Ariel (and Orlando in AYLI) was one of the most monotone actors I have ever heard speak. And the icing on the cake — the night I was there, one of the actors either forgot or hadn’t sufficiently learned his lines. What I found so disturbing was that another actor on stage was prepared enough for this as to be holding a “bible” that was actually a script and he actually fed the forgetful actor his lines. I just find this completely unacceptable. When an actor does not know his lines, he’s fired. Sorry. It’s cute when you go to see an elementary school production, but when you are paying to see professional work, it’s ridiculous. We’ve fired actors in the past because they come in unprepared and I expect the same standards from a company like BAM.
Even though this was months ago, Danielle can tell you how ridiculously flushed I still get when talking about this! I will now climb down off my soapbox and take a chill pill.
But PS — I will agree with you completely about Rylance’s insipid Miranda. And Kat, in response to your question about blaming producers and actors for their interpretations… as a producer and actor myself, I blame other producers and actors for their interpretations often. Or at least, I think we can hold them completely accountable. If I dislike an interpretation, it’s actually usually because I think it’s not grounded in the text.
I agree that Christian Camargo was quite bad as Ariel & Orlando, but I also have heard great things about his Hamlet at Theatre for a New Audience the season before. I find that hard to believe, but so I’m told.
Sounds as if we disagree somewhat about Mendes (who I thought directed a fine Tempest & bland AYLI) & Stephen Dillane. I certainly felt the static quality in AYLI, esp from Duke Senior & Orlando but really from almost everyone. I’ve got a review of that running in Shakespeare Bulletin too, which I suppose I could post later.
The page & stage stuff might merit more discussion at a later date. The old assumption that Shakespeare wrote only for the stage took a decent hit from Lukas Erne’s *Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist*, which I think may over-state the case but is well worth reading —
http://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Literary-Dramatist-Lukas-Erne/dp/0521822556