The Eye of the Beholder

It took me a while to respond to the production of The Tempest I saw, partly because I wasn't that moved by it. I thought the As You Like It with the same actors was better. However, I also think my expectations were higher for the Tempest--I know it better as a story, and I've thought about it more. Also, it's so full of magic and fantasy that it's hard for a staged version to live up to the story as you have imagined it in your head. A performance would have to have the production budget of Avatar to create the storm and the ship and the island--let alone Ariel and Caliban--as I envisioned them. Actually, the idea of the Avatar version of the tempest is kind-of cool...

There was a review of the performance in the New Yorker that, although well written, I did not particularly agree with (http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/theatre/2010/03/08/100308crth_theatre_lahr) I don't think he's right that the play is all about Prospero, although I can see how that could be an interpretation. Partly, I did not think that the actor playing Prospero was that strong, even though he was great as Jacques. He kept yelling at his daughter, which seemed unnecessary. The actor I thought did really well in the production was the man who played Caliban. I felt particularly aware, watching him, of the colonial interpretations of the play, and the contrast between the two different types of bondage that Caliban and Ariel were under. In contrast, that was an interpretation that the NYer review did not see as very important in the Mendes production. I suppose that is one of the great strengths of Shakespeare--the plays allow us to see such different things in them.

Next time, I must write about Lear, which I just finished reading. That ending...