We watched Shakespeare’s The Tempest open at the Hanna Theater last Friday. You know the story. Magician Prospero, living with his daughter Miranda on a remote island, conjures a storm at sea and many are lost in a shipwreck, or so it seems.
Then Miranda and the shipwrecked prince fall in love. Will the lovers find true happiness? Will the various shipwrecked villains be foiled in their schemes? Will Prospero win back his dukedom? Will the spirit Ariel win his freedom? No need for spoiler alerts here. It will all come back to you well before Prospero’s epilogue.
The scenes in the Tempest shift cinematically from one group of confused castaways to the next. To the lovers, the scheming politicians, and the drunken clowns it must all seem like an episode of Lost with inexplicable sci-fi / magical incidents. Each group believes that they’re the only survivors. But each time the scene shifts back to Prospero we see him manipulating events. Through his magical control of his servant Ariel he variously puts to sleep, deludes and misleads the survivors. No need to consult your program in order to keep up with the story in this play, for Shakespeare contrives to tell us everything that happens 3 times, once when Prospero gives orders to Ariel, again when Ariel works his magic on the survivors, and again when Ariel reports back to Prospero.
A play that advances by means of Prospero’s magic requires special effects, and we particularly like the way that GLT’s Tempest has invested in surreal costumes and lighting to realize “magical” events for an audience accustomed to Computer Generated Imagery at the multiplex. Our personal favorites were the hell hounds that Prospero sends after the clowns. GLT’s spectacular mirrored costumes in Act III Scene III lend emotional plausibility to the repentance and reconciliation that the villains express at the play’s ending, for if Prospero’s magic can call forth such surreal beings, then it’s easy to imagine that his magic can make even scheming politicians feel their own guilt.
For sets for The Tempest, Scenic Designer Russell Metheny seems to have deliberately chosen dull, drab colors occasionally varied with bright, mirrored surfaces. For the opening scene with the ship in a storm at sea, dull and drab work fine. The sound of wind and waves and an imaginary pitch of the ship — that sends the actors reeling — effectively brings the illusion home.
The mirrored louvers on the face of Prospero’s cell seemed to speak to a mysterious purpose. Are these the mirrored surfaces that Renaissance necromancers gazed into seeking mystical knowledge? Somehow it all works.
Costume Designer Kim Krumm Sorenson has provided 3 groups of costumes. There are simple costumes, again in drab colors, that might seem home-made for Prospero and Miranda to wear in the beginning of the play. There are court costumes for the politicians that are mash ups, cut like present day pants and coats but made of subtly patterned fabrics richly ornamented with metallic accents and accessorized with Renaissance-style boots, belts, and daggers. And fantastic costumes including the hell hounds, spectacular mirrored costumes, and plastic “gowns” for the 3 goddesses portrayed (in a throwback to Elizabethan custom) by young men.
The actors in The Tempest demonstrate the professionalism we’ve come to expect from GLT. Only Ryan David O’Byrne’s Ariel was miked (to excellent effect) but all made themselves clearly heard.
The physicality of many in the cast gave the production a boost. The hell hounds bounded down off the stage and through the audience after the clowns with fearsome energy. Buff J. Todd Adams’ Caliban channeled Heath Ledger as the Joker in a tortured, writhing turn.
In his program note, Director Drew Barr sets his sights on emotional truth beyond story or special effects. “Prospero, who has devoted his life to knowing all there is to know about the universe, must confront the extent to which he does not know himself and can never fully know others. We appreciate, in the midst of our tempestuous lives, how rare and precious are those moments when we can truly see, can truly touch, can truly feel the humanity of those around us.”
For us, Barr and his cast have realized this goal, making for an unusually satisfying Tempest.
[Photo: Roger Mastroianni]
Great Lakes Theater presents The Tempest at the Hanna Theatre in Playhouse Square from Friday 4/10 to Sunday 4/26/2015. For tickets $15 to $70 / students $13 phone 216-241-6000, visit the Playhouse Square Ticket Office, or buy tickets and see a complete list of days and times here.
From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas. Elsa and Vic are both longtime Clevelanders. Elsa is a landscape designer. She studied ballet as an avocation for 2 decades. Vic has been a dancer and dance teacher for most of his working life, performing in a number of dance companies in NYC and Cleveland. They write about dance as a way to learn more and keep in touch with the dance community. E-mail them at vicnelsaATearthlink.net.
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