The Inception of Shakespeare

The Inception of ShakespeareReview by Hadley Kamminga-Peck

How does one adapt Shakespeare’s most theatrical and meta-theatrical play to the page? Margaret Atwood answers the question admirably in Hag-Seed by writing a plot that centers on an unusual production of the play, mimicking it at the same time. The doubled and occasionally tripled employment of devices and characters from The Tempest makes for a novel rich in texture, meaning, and intrigue. Atwood moves the action of the play from an island in the Mediterranean to a forgotten corner of Canada; Prospero is now Felix Phillips, a deposed Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival who exiles himself and is reborn as “Mr. Duke.” His one dream is to realize his aborted production of The Tempest, and as he grows in resentment, he seeks out the relationship between himself and Prospero, whom he would have played. Felix is given his chance to enact revenge through a prison education program, a literal manifestation of Prospero’s island prison, which also provides an exploration of the play’s continued political applications.

Atwood fills the play with characters derived from The Tempest: Felix is haunted by the ghost of his daughter who died in childhood, Miranda, though she often functions as Ariel. Antonio manifests as Tony, the upstart assistant, while Lonnie Gordon, a benevolent Chair of the Board, fills Gonzalo’s shoes.

Felix himself seems to alternate between Prospero and Caliban, highlighting how much similarity exists between the two, and how “this thing of darkness” is as much within Prospero as Caliban. The characters are revisited within the prison’s tenants, who also play them in the production, creating a telescopic and multi-faceted interpretation.

Where Atwood demonstrates her panache is in the self-awareness of her writing, embodying Shakespeare’s presence within his play. Towards the end of the story, one of the prisoners reminds Felix that he had said there was a prison in the play that the prisoners hadn’t yet found. Felix responds by pointing to the Epilogue, “But release me from my bands/With the help of your good hands…Let your indulgence set me free.” He points out “…the ninth prison is the play itself” (282). Atwood writes a story that is a prison for the characters, she sets it in a prison, and explores the mental prisons we create for ourselves when we let the past haunt us. She uses the literal prisoners to examine and dispel the metaphorical prisons Shakespeare left unanswered in the play.

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood | Hogarth Shakespeare Series, Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House. 2016