What I learned. . .
The Tempest was another of Shakespeare’s plays that I’d done my best to avoid. Perhaps it’s because, as with The Merry Wives of Windsor, I’d rarely seen a production that seemed to succeed; perhaps I thought it was altogether an impossible play to make work. Although I don’t think I got all of the pieces comprising this magical, baffling play right, having to dive into the work headlong and immerse myself in the attempt to get it right taught me much – and having succeeded on as many fronts as I think I did, I can honestly say I look forward to the next time I have the opportunity to direct the play.
The Tempest is probably Shakespeare’s last play, and falls into the category of his romances, which also includes Pericles, Cymebline, and The Winter’s Tale. I realized early on that I myself wasn’t entirely clear about what specific elements comprised a romance (though I’ve directed Cymbeline and seen a number of productions of The Winter’s Tale) so learning more about the form and its actual expectations seemed essential to building a viable production. What resonated with me most, I think, was the need for the Masque – in the case of The Tempest this meant that the supernatural spirits, the banquet, the Harpy, the pursuing dogs, and the goddesses all had a natural and expected place in the production. Rather than cutting or avoiding those challenges, I decided to take them on, and was fortunate to get to work with a group of very talented young designers who were as eager as I was to figure out how to make those elements vivid, fun, and an integral part of the production.
Further, I learned that Shakespeare had been criticized by his peers for being unable to write a play that adhered to the unities of time and place, and it is theorized that part of what he wanted to accomplish in The Tempest was to silence those critics for once and for all and therefore, made certain that the play took place in one day’s time, and all in the same locale. It was, in a way, Shakespeare thumbing his nose at his detractors.
I also found out that there is an actual island off the northern coast of Sicily that exactly matches the description of Prospero’s island in Shakespeare’s text and that would have been directly on the course on which Antonio, Ferdinand, Gonzalo, and the other nobles would have set sail as they traveled from northern Italy to Naples and to Tunis – and that according to at least one scholar, it was quite possible Shakespeare might have visited that island (though most believe that Shakespeare never set foot outside of England).
Armed with this information and after several readings of the text (and an in-depth viewing of Des McAnuf’s excellent production of the play at the Stratford, Canada, Shakespeare Festival featuring Christopher Plummer as Prospero), I dove into the design process with the students that Dottie Marshall Englis had assigned to the production, each of whom was creative, inventive, imaginative, and fun. We had a blast.
Dottie and the acting faculty at Webster, always concerned about providing enough opportunities for women in Conservatory productions, asked me to seriously consider as much cross-gender casting as possible. The result was that I cast female actors as Prospero, Antonio, Trinculo, and Ariel (the latter being not uncommon in many productions). I asked the actors to simply “go for the human being” and to not worry about gender – to worry about action, intention, pursuit of objective, obstacle, and playing to win instead of trying to “man up.” It’s my belief that the rest will follow, if you simply start with the basics, and that after a brief period of adjustment, we simply accept the idea that this is a woman playing Propspero – or Antonio or Trinculo or Ariel, and enough said. The theatre, after all, is the meeting place for the imagination and the willing suspension of disbelief. I thought all four women acquitted themselves well and turned in very credible work.
Ariel and Caliban are something of the polar opposites yet twin spirits under Propsero’s command on his island, and the only two characters in the play who are referred to as “slaves.” It was chancy, therefore, to consider African-American actors for the roles, but it turned out that the two students I felt best suited for the parts were both actors of color. Bruce Longworth, who heads Webster’s acting program, and I talked to the African-American Conservatory students after general auditions and as callbacks got underway, and told them that we would certainly understand if they wished to not be considered for the parts. To a person they all said, “No! These are good roles and we want the chance to play them” – which they did, wonderfully well.
One of the most vexing aspects of The Tempest is not Prospero and his relationship with Miranda – or Miranda’s with Ferdinand – or Caliban or Ariel or even the more supernatural, Masque-like elements. It’s those pesky Nobles who wash ashore and wander in and out of the action. Hard to tell them apart; hard to make clear their story and their function in the play. It’s the part of any production of The Tempest I’ve seen that has confused, baffled, and/or bored me. So in many respects, that was the part of the play that scared me the most. But as with anything in Shakespeare that frightens me (the “English scene” in Macbeth, for instance), I simply summon my courage, dig into the text, try to avoid choices that obfuscate my ignorance or lack of specificity and let me off the hook, and just do my best to figure out what the scene is about, from where the conflict within the scene and the characters arises, what objectives each person on stage is pursuing, and what gets accomplished by scene’s end – how the story gets moved forward. I’d say that I made a good first attempt at understanding and conquering this element of the play, and will apply everything I learned to the next opportunity I get to spend time with these characters.
In so many ways, this first outing was the ideal way for me to begin my directorial acquaintance with this challenging, formidable, and beautiful script. I was blessed with enough rehearsal time, eager and talented young designers, and an equally eager and talented cast that was ready to trust and to dig in and explore the play. I could not have asked for better support all the way around, and I just hope I’m lucky enough to have as strong a foundation the next time I’m entrusted with this magical and moving play.