The Tempest at the Globe
Jun. 1st, 2005 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelseagirlAt ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mortalwombat731's request. I thought I'd make this a new entry instead of a response in case my co-attendees wanted to chime in, add to, interpret differently, etc.
The production had a cast of three actors (male) and three dancers (female). Mark Rylance played Prospero, Alonso King of Naples, one of the conspiratorial courtiers (I think Sebastian, Alonso's brother) and Stephano the drunken butler. I particularly liked his Prospero -- he was more hesitant, less magisterial than Prosperos usually run and it worked interestingly. Since Alonso and Sebastian share many scenes, this got a bit odd -- especially when Rylance would reply mockingly to himself -- and when Alonso and Prospero have their final confrontation at the end, it was just bizarre, as he's apparently reconciling with himself. Another actor played Caliban, Ferdinand, and Gonzalo. He mussed up his hair when playing Caliban and smoothed it back when playing Ferdinand. This was particularly interesting doubling as it could be seen as a commentary on Miranda's response to the two -- she finds Caliban repulsive, misshapen and etc., but Ferdinand to be a creature of rare beauty -- for cultural/racial/etc. reasons, presumably. The final actor played Miranda, Ariel, Trinculo the other drunken servant, and Antonio, Prospero's usurping brother. (Unless he was Sebastian; I haven't got my program here.) In some ways he had the biggest stretch since he was everything from the ingenue to the Machiavellian conspirator. I particularly liked his Ariel (having screened a zillion versions to decide what to show my students, *any* non-embarrassing Ariel is a good thing). Sometimes he played things a little too much for laughs, as when he dropped his voice when telling Ferdinand his name was Miranda. But overall all the performances were strong.
The men all wore Elizabethan costume (Miranda/Ariel/Trinculo/Antonio's was a little less gender-specific, being a longer shirt over breeches). The three dancers, who filled in as spirts, extras, whatever was necessary, were actually quite effective. They wore modern dress -- Levi's, high tops, black sleeveless t's, and studded black leather jackets with designs on the back that suggested they were the three Fates, though they were identified only as "dancers" in the program. I'm not quite sure how I felt about the time-disjointedness of the costuming.
silme tells me there's a good essay in the program book about the ideas behind this production and how it's a Jungian interpretation of the text. I keep forgetting to read the essay (I think about it mostly when I'm in the library and it's home, alas -- now that I've publicly stated this I'll be certain to read it soon!), but even without that there's a lot of interest in the parallelism. The different plots are all doing essentially the same things but on different social levels -- the two sets of conspirators, for example -- and having them played by the same actors makes an interesting commentary.
But I do wonder how much confusion was engendered -- the actors indicated the differences in their characters by their performances and sometimes by small, subtle visual cues, but for someone who didn't know the play well, it must have been awfully confusing. As I said, occasionally my mind would wander (a plane overhead or whatnot would distract me) and it would take me a moment before I recognized which characters were there -- and I know this play extremely well. Still, the audience laughed in all the right places and seemed very responsive, so apparently the production was quite effective.
mortalwombat731's request. I thought I'd make this a new entry instead of a response in case my co-attendees wanted to chime in, add to, interpret differently, etc. The production had a cast of three actors (male) and three dancers (female). Mark Rylance played Prospero, Alonso King of Naples, one of the conspiratorial courtiers (I think Sebastian, Alonso's brother) and Stephano the drunken butler. I particularly liked his Prospero -- he was more hesitant, less magisterial than Prosperos usually run and it worked interestingly. Since Alonso and Sebastian share many scenes, this got a bit odd -- especially when Rylance would reply mockingly to himself -- and when Alonso and Prospero have their final confrontation at the end, it was just bizarre, as he's apparently reconciling with himself. Another actor played Caliban, Ferdinand, and Gonzalo. He mussed up his hair when playing Caliban and smoothed it back when playing Ferdinand. This was particularly interesting doubling as it could be seen as a commentary on Miranda's response to the two -- she finds Caliban repulsive, misshapen and etc., but Ferdinand to be a creature of rare beauty -- for cultural/racial/etc. reasons, presumably. The final actor played Miranda, Ariel, Trinculo the other drunken servant, and Antonio, Prospero's usurping brother. (Unless he was Sebastian; I haven't got my program here.) In some ways he had the biggest stretch since he was everything from the ingenue to the Machiavellian conspirator. I particularly liked his Ariel (having screened a zillion versions to decide what to show my students, *any* non-embarrassing Ariel is a good thing). Sometimes he played things a little too much for laughs, as when he dropped his voice when telling Ferdinand his name was Miranda. But overall all the performances were strong.
The men all wore Elizabethan costume (Miranda/Ariel/Trinculo/Antonio's was a little less gender-specific, being a longer shirt over breeches). The three dancers, who filled in as spirts, extras, whatever was necessary, were actually quite effective. They wore modern dress -- Levi's, high tops, black sleeveless t's, and studded black leather jackets with designs on the back that suggested they were the three Fates, though they were identified only as "dancers" in the program. I'm not quite sure how I felt about the time-disjointedness of the costuming.
silme tells me there's a good essay in the program book about the ideas behind this production and how it's a Jungian interpretation of the text. I keep forgetting to read the essay (I think about it mostly when I'm in the library and it's home, alas -- now that I've publicly stated this I'll be certain to read it soon!), but even without that there's a lot of interest in the parallelism. The different plots are all doing essentially the same things but on different social levels -- the two sets of conspirators, for example -- and having them played by the same actors makes an interesting commentary. But I do wonder how much confusion was engendered -- the actors indicated the differences in their characters by their performances and sometimes by small, subtle visual cues, but for someone who didn't know the play well, it must have been awfully confusing. As I said, occasionally my mind would wander (a plane overhead or whatnot would distract me) and it would take me a moment before I recognized which characters were there -- and I know this play extremely well. Still, the audience laughed in all the right places and seemed very responsive, so apparently the production was quite effective.
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Date: 2005-06-01 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 12:56 pm (UTC)The trip got pushed forward and abbreviated after M. lost his job -- next time I certainly will take you up on that!