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him – the tone is not indulgent. Leaving the magic of the stage, the “great globe itself ”, will be a painful and irrecoverable loss.
Stage history and adaptations It’s possible that The Tempest was specially written for the Blackfriars theatre, where Shakespeare’s company began performing in 1609, but it was likely that it was also performed at the Globe during the summer months. In any case the only surviving text, that of the 1623 Folio, has unusually detailed stage directions and requires a great deal of music. It was also acted several times at court: once for James I in 1611, again during the celebrations for his daughter’s wedding in 1613. However spectacular those early performances, however, they would be trumped after the Restoration with the appearance of William Davenant and John Dryden’s adaptation The Tempest, or the Enchanted Island (1667), which featured impressive stage machinery but less than a third of the original text. Davenant introduced several new characters – among them “Hippolito”, an innocent male counterpart to Miranda – and emphasized the piece’s comedy (to the delight of Pepys, who saw it several times). Capitalizing on its runaway popularity, Thomas Shadwell mounted an “operatic” version of the same in 1674, with music mostly by Matthew Locke, which was so successful that remnants were still being performed in the nineteenth century. Making the most of The Tempest’s popularity, David Garrick launched another operatic version in 1756, though he returned to Shakespeare’s text the following year, albeit with cuts, and acted it frequently afterwards. Thomas Sheridan kept Garrick’s text when he took over Drury Lane, but John Philip Kemble reinstated some of Davenant’s changes in his productions of 1789, 1806 and 1815. During this period Prospero was presented as unwaveringly noble, at first by Robert Bensley, then the “majestic” Kemble himself, but even so John Emery was allowed to present a sympathetic, near-tragic Caliban. The most influential production of the nineteenth century would prove to be William Charles Macready’s at Covent Garden in 1838, which finally restored most of Shakespeare’s script (if not his opening scene, replaced by a “grand panoramic spectacle” depicting the shipwreck); George Bennett’s heart-rending Caliban appeared alongside the radiant Miranda of Helen Faucit and Priscilla Horton’s jaunty Ariel. Samuel Phelps’s productions at Sadler’s Wells from the 1840s were also praised, the Times observing that they offered “the best combination of Shakespeare and scenery”, but for sheer ostentation it would be hard to outdo Charles Kean’s 1857 staging at the Princess’s Theatre. This opened with a storm scene so magnificent that the visiting Hans Christian Andersen was overawed (at least until his host Charles Dickens explained how it worked), and Kean’s own “mysterious” Prospero was widely praised. But in the high Victorian era The Tempest became more than ever Caliban’s play. Frank Benson took on the part during his numerous touring productions in the last decades of the century and later at Stratford, basing an athletic interpretation on chimpanzees he had observed at the zoo and making a habit of appearing on stage with a real fish in his mouth. Also pursuing the theory that Caliban was a Darwinian 422
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Declan Donnellan’s 2011 fast-moving Cheek by Jowl production, with a Russian cast, pointed up The Tempest’s freshness and experimentalism – memorably concluding in a masque scene that resembled a Soviet peasant opera.
“missing link” was Herbert Beerbohm Tree, whose portrayal from 1904 became famous – not least because he expanded it to make the character more appealing, closing the play with a newly “civilized” Caliban waving farewell to the Milanese ships. By this time William Poel’s radical productions with his Elizabethan Stage Society had come and gone, and innovation was all the rage. Ben Greet’s performances at the Old Vic from 1915 lasted just two hours and starred Sybil Thorndike as Ferdinand; while John Drinkwater’s Birmingham Rep production from the same year was designed by Barry Jackson and featured E. Stewart Vinden as Ariel, the first man in the role for some two centuries. William Bridges-Adams, a Poel disciple, put on a 1919 Tempest designed to look as it might have done in 1613, and staged it again at Stratford in 1934 with Neil Porter as Prospero. Going against a hoary stage tradition that the island’s ruler was nothing if not kindly, Porter dared to present him as both irascible and distinctly unpleasant. The most influential Prospero of the era – perhaps of the century – was John Gielgud, who first acted him under Harcourt Williams at the Old Vic in 1930 to Ralph Richardson’s Caliban. Gielgud, then just 26, dispensed with the flowing robes and beard of yore and instead created a man “rich in … melancholy”, according to one witness. In Peter Brook’s 1957 production Prospero became an essentially noble figure, returning in triumph to his dukedom in the play’s closing moments; whereas for Peter Hall, at the National in 1974, Gielgud’s interpretation had hardened into 423
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brusque aloofness – a reading partly inspired by the Elizabethan magician and natural scientist John Dee (see p.416). Michael Benthall’s celebrated 1951 Stratford staging, by contrast, went the other way – initially featuring Michael Redgrave’s forceful Prospero, later replacing him with the more approachable Ralph Richardson (not to mention a conventionally female Ariel, Margaret Leighton, for Alan Badel). If there is a single thread that connected postwar Tempests, it was a fresh concern with the play’s colonial politics. Unsurprisingly, much of the impetus behind this re-evaluation has come from North America, where Shakespeare’s “American play” was performed in New York as early as 1854 by William Burton. In 1945 Canada Lee was the first black actor to play Caliban, in a New York production directed by Margaret Webster, while Nagel Jackson’s 1970 staging in Washington had both Ariel and Caliban played by black actors (Darryl Croxton and Henry Baker respectively) in order to draw parallels with America’s slave history. Over in the UK, Jonathan Miller directed a fiercely anti-colonialist production at the Mermaid Theatre in London, also in 1970, inflected by the director’s reading of Octave Mannoni’s Prospero and Caliban, a study of the French colonization of Madagascar. Even more illuminating was the Martinique-born Aimé Césaire’s rewriting, Une Tempête (1969), which posited Caliban as a revolutionary hero. Earnest approaches such as these were intriguingly mirrored in 1990 by Peter Brook with a touring multiracial troupe, among whose number were David Bennent’s boyish Caliban and Sotugui Kouyate’s benevolent Prospero. Nine years earlier, Giorgio Strehler’s Milanese version stunned audiences with its theatrical virtuosity – much, one suspects, as Shakespeare would have wanted. Plurality of approach as well as of casting has, naturally enough, characterized more recent productions of this much-revived play. In just one year, 1988, British audiences were treated to Peter Hall’s second NT production, with Michael Bryant’s grizzled Prospero; Declan Donnellan’s typically playful Cheek by Jowl version; a modern-dress production from Nicholas Hytner at the RSC, focused on John Wood’s all-too-human Prospero; and a Noh-influenced Japanese version directed by Yukio Ninagawa. Ariel finally got his moment under Sam Mendes at the RSC in 1993, with Simon Russell Beale’s haughty sprite allowed to spit at his master (Alec McCowen) after being granted freedom. In Jude Kelly’s 1999 West Yorkshire Playhouse production, Ian McKellen’s Prospero, wearing a plastic raincoat and a battered hat, attracted comment and some condemnation for his unrepentant grumpiness. In an even more radical approach to the play’s interpersonal relationships, the London Globe saw Vanessa Redgrave play Prospero in 2000, directed by Lenka Udovicki – though, like McKellen, Redgrave gave a pointedly gruff performance. Derek Jacobi had his turn at imitating Gielgud at the Sheffield Crucible under Michael Grandage in 2002 in an actor-led production that nevertheless conjured plenty of theatrical magic, most striking when the ship’s billowing sailcloth was sucked into Prospero’s book. Although dramatically very different, Tim Carroll’s Elizabethan production at the Globe in 2005 also indulged author-hero fantasies by casting outgoing artistic director Mark Rylance both as Prospero and his usurping brother,; the magician plotted the action on a chessboard before casting away the pieces in disgust. By contrast, Rupert Goold’s eclectic production at the RSC the following year embedded the play in Arctic ice, with Patrick Stewart’s cabin-feverish hero lording it 424
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over Mariah Gale’s brutalized Miranda. Even doomier was David Farr’s staging at the same venue in 2012, dominated by Jonathan Slinger’s rasping and choleric Prospero. Altogether more liquid than Goold’s production was Declan Donnellan’s return to the play with a Russian cast in 2011 (it featured sea-bound video projections and gallons of real water sloshed around the stage), but it was again centred on the torments of Anya Khalilulina’s child-of-nature Miranda, visibly horrified by having to part from Alexander Feklistov’s tearful Caliban. Bangladesh’s Dhaka Theatre, staging The Tempest in Bangla at the Globe as part of the World Shakespeare Festival, offered carnival and colour in the manner of the traditional panchali form, but also subtly emphasized the play’s colonial dynamics by presenting Chandan Chowdhury’s Caliban and Rubol Lodi’s Prospero as cut from the same cloth. By contrast, the version done at the same venue by Jeremy Herrin the following year was – despite its Jacobean-ish costumes – an unrepentantly old-fashioned star vehicle, centred on Roger Allam’s fatherly magus. Something similar was true at New York’s Shakespeare in the Park in summer 2015, with Public Theatre veteran Sam Waterston offering a beneficent, somewhat cuddly island ruler in a style long out of fashion. On screen, The Tempest has inspired numerous tributes, many of them somewhat esoteric. The earliest, a filming of the shipwreck from Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s touring production, appeared in 1905; while other film adaptations range from the relatively faithful (Derek Jarman’s 1979 Tempest) to the ostentatious (Peter Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books, 1991) and the wonderfully bizarre (the sci-fi Forbidden Planet, directed by Fred McLeod Wilcox and released in 1956). The 1979 BBC/TimeLife production was directed by John Gorrie and saw Michael Hordern’s Prospero opposite Warren Clarke’s Caliban. In 2010 Julie Taymor followed her well-regarded Titus (see p.45) with a version of The Tempest, featuring grande dame Helen Mirren as a character intriguingly called Prospera.
Screen
Shakespeare anthology along with intriguing versions of Twelfth Night (see p.478), Richard III (see p.385) and Dream (see p.316).
The Tempest
Percy Stow (dir.) UK, 1908 > on Silent Shakespeare (BFI) d w
Forbidden Planet
Though not quite twelve minutes long, this silent Tempest from 1908 feels like a veritable odyssey, packing the play’s highlights and its backstory into a succession of swift-flowing scenes. Details of the cast have long since disappeared, and although its members share equal screen-time the elfin little girl playing Ariel and an exaggeratedly hirsute Caliban (shown munching on roots, Timon-style) especially catch the eye. It’s a charming version, made all the more appealing by its deft mixture of set-based footage and adventurous location shots (Ariel dances around a sun-dappled wood, Ferdinand literally clambers out of the sea), cinematography that comes together in one impressive split-screen shot in which Prospero is shown conjuring a real storm – with waves, pyrotechnics and a flock of real doves for good measure. It’s available on the BFI’s excellent Silent
Esoteric plotting, an improbable love story and sometimes impenetrable dialogue? That’s just the original. But this cult re-rendering of Shakespeare’s final solo riff has many of those features too, translating Prospero’s potent art into twenty-third-century sci-fi wizardry. We’re beamed down to the green-skied planet of Altair-4, where a scientific colony has long since lost contact with Earth. A military team headed by Commander John J. Adams (Leslie Nielsen) heads into space to locate the problem, and ends up encountering the mysterious Dr Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) and his daughter Altaria (Anne Francis) – not to mention their dutiful servant, Robby the Robot. The film’s borrowings from The Tempest pretty much halt there, though in its influential special effects
W. Pidgeon, A. Francis, L. Nielsen; Fred McLeod Wilcox (dir.) USA, 1956 > Warner d w
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Forbidden Planet has surprisingly intimate affinities with the theatrical innovations of the play. What keeps it earthbound, unfortunately, is the script, which largely hobbles the cast (a pre-Naked Gun Nielsen rarely has a smirk off his lips). And in its lurching final twist, the film ditches any connections with Shakespeare and invests rather too much in 1950s American paranoia. Entertaining nonetheless.
dancer Michael Clark’s stunning Caliban. As an idea the film is attractive, but Prospero’s Books ultimately feels hollow: not quite as smart as it thinks it is.
The Tempest H. Mirren, B. Whishaw, R. Brand; Julie Taymor (dir.) USA, 2010 > Disney / Touchstone d w After scoring a surprise hit with her startling Titus (see p.451), Julie Taymor’s return to Shakespeare seems at first glance to be cut from similarly eclectic cloth: Prospero is “Prospera”, played by Helen Mirren; British comediancum-rabble-rouser Russell Brand plays the jester; and the action is relocated to Hawaii. On closer inspection, though, this Tempest is unexpectedly traditional, certainly compared to almost every other cinematic version. Nearly all the play is here, from shipwreck to final reconciliation, and a well-regarded Anglo-American cast puts in fine work, led by Mirren, more clear-eyed and thoughtful than the testy old tyrants who have become the norm. Making Prospero a mother rather than a father doesn’t otherwise achieve a tremendous amount, and in some ways the best performance on offer is Ben Whishaw’s waif-like Ariel, who despite being digitally manipulated to within an inch of his life is full of sharp and sceptical curiosity. In truth, the gee-whizz CGI seems somewhat wasted – shots of storming seas and the volcanic Hawaiian landscape do more than enough, and the Elizabethan-steampunk costumes by designer Sandy Powell are gorgeous. A note of advice: if you download the film you’re spared the cringeworthy sight of Brand dressed as Shakespeare, being interviewed by Taymor, on the DVD/Blu-ray extras.
The Tempest H. Williams, T. Wilcox, K. Johnson; Derek Jarman (dir.) UK, 1979 > Second Sight / Viacom d w The Tempest may well be the most conspicuously unified play in the canon – all its action takes place in one location during the space of one day – but watching this idiosyncratic adaptation you’d hardly guess. Jarman hacks and rearranges the text, reflowing its narrative into a series of brief and disjunctive scenes, while the “island” is a series of firelit interiors in which rockinghorses, baroque furniture and straw liberally mingle. Though in a strange kind of way this emphasizes the play’s bespoke originality, the film’s successes are fragmentary – a series of vignettes rather than a satisfying composition. The mix of different performing styles adds to the oddness: poet Heathcote Williams’ youngish but gruff Prospero seems strangely disengaged, but Toyah Wilcox’s Miranda fizzes with quizzical energy, while the blind performance artist Jack Birkett very nearly steals the show as Caliban. Jarman reserves his greatest coup for a wonderfully camp finale, which succeeds in trumping even Shakespeare’s magical masques with the help of elderly jazz diva Elisabeth Welch and a chorus of wheeling sailors. Also available in HD Blu-ray format.
Audio
Prospero’s Books
The Tempest
J. Gielgud, I. Pasco, M. Rylance; Peter Greenaway (dir.) UK, 1991 > Allied Artists d
P. Madoc, N. Wadia, C. Rhys; David Hunter (dir.) UK, 2001 > BBC c w
Prospero’s Books takes Shakespeare’s mage quite literally at his word. Greenaway’s central conceit is familiar enough, equating the Bard and Prospero, but his way of broaching it is characteristically esoteric. The “books” of the title are those that tempted Shakespeare’s rightful Duke away from the day job, and Greenaway imagines them to cover the panoply of Renaissance knowledge – from cosmology to pornography. These volumes structure the film, producing a series of meditations on aspects of The Tempest rather than a fully fleshed-out narrative. It’s as much a paean to John Gielgud as anything else, and until the very end his spry but sober Prospero speaks all the play’s lines as well as solemnly inscribing them in the last book of all, The Tempest itself. With most of the cast able to communicate only through body language, this often feels like a piece of performance art, and alongside Gielgud and a very young Mark Rylance its other star is
Listening to recordings of The Tempest can be an odd experience: on audio the isle “full of noises” has a unique power to charm – and also a unique habit of going awry at the hands of over-enthusastic sound engineers. This version sits firmly in the first category (despite some odd silvery tinklings around Nina Wadia’s giggly Ariel), and makes for excellent listening. Philip Madoc’s rumbling Prospero has a voice to die for, as do many of this predominantly Welsh cast, who impart a rugged sonority to Shakespeare’s late verse (particularly Joshua Richards’s Caliban). The audio mix lends real intimacy to this production, although interpretatively it’s hardly radical: Madoc stresses the inscrutable but benign aspects of the character, Wadia’s Ariel is eager to please and the play’s feel-good conclusion has reconciliation aplenty.
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Some criticism
The Tempest I. McKellen, S. Handy, E. Fox; John Tydeman (dir.) UK, 2005 > Naxos c w
Shakespeare’s Caliban Alden T. Vaughan & Virginia Mason Vaughan; 1993 > Cambridge UP
A burst of thunder, and we’re in – on the groaning deck of a soon-to-be-sunk ship, creaking and groaning amid the waves. The sound of this Naxos Tempest is realistic and vibrant, and magic is most often signalled by Renaissance music rather than gee-whiz sound effects (though there is some nifty digital fading accompanying Scott Handy’s cooing Ariel). Pulling the levers is Ian McKellen’s Prospero, though it’s the quiet subtleties of his performance that impress most. Some might wish for a more dynamic approach to the miraculous poetry of the part – McKellen’s growling “our revels now are ended” is almost thrown away – but it’s effectively done, and suits this restrained and pensive production. Emilia Fox sounds a little prim as Miranda, though Benedict Cumberbatch makes a winningly earnest Ferdinand; and the colonial dimensions of the play are registered here by the dignified Caliban of Ben Onwukwe.
In the days when The Tempest was widely understood as a serene retirement note from Shakespeare, critics still found time to investigate the play’s most puzzling and troubling component – Caliban. Shakespeare’s Caliban: A cultural history joins (and describes) a long tradition of engagement with the “savage and deformed slave” of the Folio’s job description. It was assembled in partnership by the Vaughans, literary critics both, who also edit the fine Arden 3 edition of the play (2003). Their work is predictably engaging, following Caliban’s tracks from the historical contexts that most likely spawned him to recent concerns with the play’s colonial ramifications. It also looks at his history on stage and screen as well as in visual art. In that sense Shakespeare’s Caliban is partly a history of changing cultural taste, but the Vaughans’ wider observation – that Caliban has been “endlessly transformed yet always recognizable” – underlines the extent to which his mutating shape reveals as much about us as about Shakespeare’s play.
Editions Oxford Shakespeare Stephen Orgel (ed.); 1987 > Oxford UP
The Tempest and its Travels
Peter Hulme & William Sherman (eds.); 2000 > Reaktion / Pennsylvania UP
Stephen Orgel’s edition isn’t the newest on offer (David Lindley’s New Cambridge was updated in 2013 and is also recommended), but it is one of the best. Orgel is a distinguished writer and critic, particularly expert on the lavish seventeenth-century royal entertainments known as masques (many of his essays on these and other topics are collected in The Authentic Shakespeare, published in 2002). Given that The Tempest’s virtuosic staging contains elements of masque, Orgel is well placed to offer insights into its theatrical practice, but he is equally informative on a range of topics, ranging from the play’s involvement with the New World to its use of history. No fewer than six appendices – one devoted to Montaigne – add formidable range to this edition.
It doesn’t have much truck with traditionalist approaches to The Tempest, but in every other way this collection goes in for plurality: it includes poems and excerpts from theatrical reworkings of the play along with a welcome focus on visual art (there’s a fine piece by David Dabydeen on Hogarth’s well-known painting of Act One, scene two, showing Prospero, Miranda and Caliban). Many of the essays here touch on colonial and postcolonial topics located in the New World (somewhat de rigueur these days), but others go off in more unusual, if less exotic, directions – among them Robin Kirkpatrick’s terrific article on the Italian background to the play and Donna Hamilton’s piece on English versions of that great travelling epic, Virgil’s Aeneid. An illuminating anthology. David Bevington and Peter Holland’s collection The Tempest: Shakespeare in Performance (2008) also features excellent material about the play’s life on stage.
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