The
Tempest
By
William Shakespeare
Directed by Brian B. Crowe
Director's
Message
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| Clark Carmichael as Ferdinand and
Michael Stewart Allen as Ariel in THE TEMPEST. Photo ©
Gerry Goodstein. |
"Not to be dismissed as escapist fantasies, [Shakespeare's
romances] reassure us on a deep, almost subconscious level
that whatever is precious can never be completely lost."
- Norrie Epstein
The Friendly Shakespeare
"What several centuries of readers, watchers and critics
have found so fascinating in Shakespeare's last solo play
is perhaps less the story of the shipwreck, island refuge,
murderous cabals and happy ending than THE TEMPEST's vibrant
but ambiguous central characters: the admirable or detestable
Prospero (who, some critics contend, reflects the author himself),
the bestial or noble Caliban, the loyal or resentful Ariel,
and the demure or resilient Miranda. Such antithetical extremes
and their intermediate positions exemplify THE TEMPEST's endlessly
arguable nature."
- Alden T. Vaughn,
Introduction to The Arden Shakespeare Edition of The Tempest
"THE TEMPEST seeks to examine human behavior in a world that
proves, with increasingly dizzying paradoxicality, to be both
real and unreal, actual and artifice. For Shakespeare, the
island is a laboratory in which human activity, including
that of the scientist himself, can best be put under the microscope."
- Peter Holland,
The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham
"Fantastical, superficial, artificial, improbable, impressionistic,
inferior, miraculous, boring * or the best: no one can agree
on the merits of Shakespeare's romances. The reasonable [have]
dismissed them as foolish, and they are. But in the words
of the playwright Dennis Potter, they are 'sweetly foolish.'
It might seem that after writing the tragedies, Shakespeare
had reached an artistic impasse* But the romances, like an
unexpected thaw, melt the wintry vision of the tragedies with
images of rebirth and reconciliation. Out of evil and torment
spring extraordinary plays where wrongs are righted and warring
families reconciled* In THE TEMPEST, one brother tries to
murder another, and a son finds his 'dead' father alive *
essentially HAMLET in reverse* The comedies depict the 'Green
World' of youth; the tragedies are about the problems of maturity.
But Shakespeare's last plays bring the generations together
in a final vision of harmony.
The world of romance is not perfect. Terrible events - death,
incest, attempted murder, and betrayal - cause suffering that
can never be undone. The wrongs of the past are not forgotten,
but they are forgiven.
The dead come back to life, abandoned children are found,
and in returning, they are altered, transformed by suffering,
magic and love. Through magic, endings are turned into beginnings."
- Norrie Epstein,
The Friendly Shakespeare
Director's Notes
THE TEMPEST has been viewed as a revenge drama, a morality
play and a romance (a genre created by Shakespeare); it is
indeed all of these, but I believe, at its core, the play
strives to examine the power of the human heart to affect
the very soul of Man.
Shakespeare hurtles us into his final solo work with a vengeance.
On board a tempest-tossed ship, the Neapolitan court struggles
against a seemingly doomed fate while in the grip of a magically
summoned sea-storm. After the threatening ocean recedes and
the ominous clouds dissipate, Shakespeare's characters find
themselves cast safely on the shore of a mysterious island,
unaware that they are about to face far greater threats *
tempests of the heart and of the mind that will change the
core of their beings.
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Act I: scene ii
Each character experiences a sea-change in the aftermath
of Prospero's mighty tempest. Alonso, believing his son lost
in the storm, recoils from his duties as king. Emboldened
by Alonso's withdrawal, Antonio and Sebastian sharpen the
teeth of their ambition and plot the murder of their weary
monarch. Gonzalo, loyal councilor to the king, dreams of a
utopia free of royal government -a blasphemous notion in Shakespeare's
day. Ferdinand, enslaved by Prospero, leaves behind the pampered
life of the court and finds in Miranda a love free of social
artifice. In a sense, each character loses himself on the
island and is unknowingly sent on a quest * challenged to
discover the essence of his true self in the harsh, burning
light of the island sun. Even Shakespeare's magus is forced
to look deep within himself. A bookish recluse who has spent
much of his life hiding from the world, he must acknowledge
his own contribution to the events which expelled him from
Milan twelve years earlier. Before his exile, it ws far easier
to exist within the safety of the impersonal and unthreatening
walls of his library than to attempt to navigate the rough
seas of politics, society and human interaction. What he had
touted as noble, intellectual pursuits were in fact been nothing
more than the emotional defense mechanisms of a man too terrified
to participate in the world around him.
In the end, Prospero, the members of the court, and even
Miranda and the "clowns", complete their quests and find their
true selves; seeing, with brutal honest, the reflections of
their very souls.
O, rejoice
Beyond a common joy, and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars: in one voyage
Did Claribel her husband find in Tunis;
And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife
Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom
In a poor isle; and all of us ourselves,
When no man was his own.
Act V: scene i
Though it is Prospero's Art which initially dispatched the
characters on their quests, the sorcerer can claim no contribution
to the effects that are brought about. Rather, it is the magical
power of the heart * that elusive elixir which resides within
each of us * that proves the stronger and more enduring craft
in THE TEMPEST: healing wounds, reuniting families and forgiving
wrongs long since past. Although he can raise mighty tempests
and strike terror into his enemies, Prospero holds no reign
over the human heart.
Lost in his rage and intoxicated by his overwhelming quest
for revenge, the sorcerer's Machiavellian drive is not stopped,
ironically, without intervention from Shakespeare's least
human character in the play, Ariel, a spirit of the air who,
though not human, possesses the play's strongest moral center.
| Ariel |
Your charm so strongly works 'em
That if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender. |
| Prospero |
Dost thou think so, spirit? |
| Ariel |
Mine would, sir, were I human. |
Act V: scene i
In this moment, Prospero finds himself at a turning point.
Either he can destroy without remorse those who have wronged
him or he can release them from his charms, forgive them and,
in so doing, begin to heal his own soul.
Though with their high wrongs I am stuck to th'
quick
Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury
Do I take part. The rarer action is
Is in virtue than in vengeance.
Act V: scene i
In the end, the sorcerer abjures his world of "rough magic."
After a dozen years of mastering his Art, he sets it aside,
acknowledging it as a useless folly in the world to which
he must return. For over a decade he has hidden behind illusions
and now must be reborn into the world of man.
Our Revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all Spirits and
Are melted into Air, into thin Air;
And - like the baseless fabric of this vision -
The Cloud-capped Towers, the gorgeous Palaces,
The solemn Temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And like this insubstantial Pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Act IV: scene i
Shakespeare's final masterpiece, which begins with chaos
in the heavens, concludes with a new-found order on earth,
brought about by a magic far superior to alchemic traditions
or the harnessing of the spirit world. Through virtue, forgiveness
and love, Shakespeare brings about a metamorphosis of the
soul, and we discover a "brave new world" in which what was
lost is found, evildoers are forgiven, and harmony and redemption
reign supreme.
* Brian B. Crowe
Special thanks to the Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum in
Duisburg, Germany for providing the artwork as seen on THE
TEMPEST program cover. For more information about the Museum,
visit www.lehmbruckmuseum.de
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