"THE TEMPEST" – by Romana Beyenburg MA,Phd (Cologne)

(from "Shakespeare in Performance"(K.Parsons and P.Mason, ed. Salamander Books, London 1995.)

A remote island is the testing ground for a reflective debate upon the influence of nature and nurture.

At the centre of The Tempest is the figure Prospero who controls the play’s action. In performance, his age and the nature of his magic influence the conception of the character. In Charles Laughton’s serene, majestic octogenarian whose "every third thought" was indeed his grave, Prospero’s desire to regain his dukedom was less immediate and disturbing than in Derek Jacobi’s vigorous middle-aged portrayal. While Prospero’s magic is often interpreted as wholly benevolent, it had strong elements of necromancy in both Jacobi’s and Michael Bryant’s interpretations. But whereas the attempt at playing God weighed heavy on Bryant and made him yearn for God’s forgiveness, Jacobi found it hard to exchange the role of omnipotent magus for that of a mortal duke.

The creation of the storm which opens The Tempest is the first example of magical powers. Although it surprises the audience ignorant of Prospero’s involvement, a production can establish the sense of an omnipotent stage manager by showing him producing the storm, as did Tom Fleming’s furious Prospero. Cheek by Jowl presented the storm as the result of an improvisation exercise whipped up by Timothy Walker’s tyrannical actor-director. Derek Jarman presented the storm as Prospero’s dream, thus giving his subconscious feelings as much power as his conscious thoughts. But the storm scene can also establish the powers of someone other than Prospero. Sam Mendes had his Ariel stand on top of a skip swinging a lantern and thereby initiate the storm. Not until halfway through the scene did Prospero appear behind a transparent gauze on top of a stepladder supervising his servant’s actions. The production’s first images introduced a collision of the master’s will with that of the servant by presenting an Ariel powerful in his own right, who made it necessary for Prospero to check up on him.

In the long scene following the storm, Prospero is confronted with the passionate concerned reproaches of his daughter Miranda. Neglecting the ambivalences apparent in her impetuosity, inquisitiveness and independence of mind, most productions stress her innocence and obedience as well as her function as a catalyst, she brings out Prospero’s potential for tenderness, but also reveals his hidden obsessions. Thus, John Wood’s and Michael Bryant’s repeated requests for Miranda’s attention during the description of the usurpation signalled the absorption in the past and the intense pain with which Prospero relived the past injustice suffered at the hands of his brother Antonio.

Prospero’s servants, Ariel and Caliban, are often described as symbolizing two opposing forces in Prospero and in man in general. Ariel represents art, imagination and the supremacy of the mind, whereas Caliban stands for the gratification of man’s animal impulses. Peter Hall substituted the Freudian concept of sublimation and libido for the more general contrast between art and nature through his use of an asexual Ariel and a naked Caliban whose genitals were muzzeld by a male version of a chastity belt. Nicholas Hytner contrasted air and earth in his presentation of Prospero’s two servants by juxtaposing a deformed, mud-caked, heavy Caliban with an Ariel whose white wig and trousers decorated with little feathers not only suggested the airy element to which he belonged, but together with his habit of ascending the sides of the proscenium arch made him seem almost to disappear into the blue and white of the cylclorama.

Characteristic of Prospero’s relationship with his servants is the rigid control he achieves over them by depriving them of their liberty. Caliban is styed in "this hard rock" and Ariel is warned that Prospero:

will rend an oak,

And peg thee in his knotty entrails,

Till thou hast howled away twelve winters

thereby threatening to aggravate the punishment Ariel had suffered at the hands of the witch Sycorax, who had imprisoned him within "a cloven pine". The horror of this threat was visualised when Alec McCowen presented a cone to Ariel, who seemed to realize with terror that it came from the very pine in which he had been imprisoned. Yet, the play counterbalances the dictatorial control over Ariel with hints of affection, notably in Ariel’s question, "Do you love me, master? No?", to which Prospero answers, "Dearly, my delicate Ariel". It is the first time Prospero turns to another creature in unselfish affection, apart from his love for Miranda, and the line marks the beginning of the end of his desire for revenge, a development which reaches its climax in his assertion that:

Yet with my nobler reason ‘gainst my fury

Do I take part

because he finally finds that:

The rarer action is

In virtue than in vengeance.

However, directed not to one of his fellow human beings but to a spirit he is about to release, these lines highlight Prospero’s isolation due to his basic inability to communicate. Thus Ian Richardson emerged as a deeply lonely figure, who, stretching out his hand to reach for Ben Kingsley’s completely unmoved Ariel, only grasped the air.

To interpret Caliban as representing the dark side of humanity with his unchecked animal impulses, especially unbridled sexual desire, is, as are most assumptions about The Tempest, only half the story. He also speaks some of the most beautiful lines in the play. Regarding Caliban’s claim to the island "by Sycorax my mother" as valid and Prospero’s contention that he was:

got by the devil himself

Upon thy wicked dam

as prejudiced, has served as a starting point for interpretations sympathetic to Caliban. The most striking examples of such an approach were Jonathan Miller’s productions at the Mermaid Theatre in 1970 and at the Old Vic in 1988, where the play emerged as a parable for colonisation. Rudolph Walker’s enslaved black Caliban exchanged the white master Prospero for the black master Ariel, who at the end of the play reassembled Prospero’s discarded staff and held it threateningly over Caliban and his fellow-islanders. In La TempÍte, Peter Brook turned Miller’s concept on its head. David Bennent’s dwarfish, white Caliban was an intruder into the serene primitive culture of a black Prospero and Ariel.

The past looms large in The Tempest, as Prospero’s extensive reminiscence in his first scene with Miranda suggests. The play’s action is a controlled re-enactment of the past with the purpose of avoiding earlier mistakes. Instead of "neglecting worldly ends" as in Milan twelve years before, Prospero now has to act on a tight schedule, for, as he says himself:

my zenith doth depend upon

A most auspicious star, whose influence

If I now court not, but omit, my fortunes

Will ever after droop.

Recovering his kingdom is tied to the reformation of his enemies, notably his brother and Alonso, the King of Naples. The text leaves open the precise extent to which Prospero has set up the opportunity for Antonio and Sebastian to plan the murder of Alonso. With the help of his spirits, Sotigui KonyatÈ introduced Alonso’s and his courtiers’ "strange drowsiness" and so allowed the opportunity for Antonio’s second conspiracy, which echoed the past usurpation and provided Prospero with further proof of his brother’s evil nature. Alec McCowen reinforced the sense of Prospero’s control over this usurpation by appearing again behind the gauze backdrop.

The plot involving Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo comically mirrors past and present conspitracies. The ridiculous failure of the plans of these characters, who end up in a stinking puddle smelling of "all horse-piss", indicates the ultimate harmlessness of their pretensions. Yet there is a streak of nastiness in Stephano and the fact that he thought of Caliban and his conspiracy disrupts the betrothal masque for Ferdinand and Miranda hints at the potential threat that these characters pose to Prospero. David Throughton’s Caliban appeared disguised as one of the reapers in the masque, which dispersed when he revealed himself.

Prospero inflicts punishment for past and present rebellion upon most characters in the play. The punishment can result from his desire for revenge or his wish to reform his enemies. Caliban’s imprisonment has a didactic function, albeit initially ineffectual. His ordeal, however, makes him "seek for grace". Slaving as a "patient logman", Ferdinand learns to appreciate Miranda, "the prize" of his labour. Alonso’s supposed loss of his son generates repentance for his part in the usurpation. Productions have tackled the question of Prospero’s motivation for punishing his enemies in different ways. While Michael Hordern and Alec McCowen emerged as rather avuncular, schoolmasterly figures pursuing forgiveness rather than revenge from the beginning, Michael Bryant and Derek Jacobi did not consider forgiveness until Ariel told him that his "affections / would become tender (...) were (he) human).

Seeking to reconcile himself with his enemies and to recover his lost dukedom, Prospero assembles all the characters on stage in the final scene. The extent of his success, however, is open to question. While Alonso is truly penitent, Sebastian’s and Antonio’s reactions to their experience on the island allow for opposing interpretations. Antonio’s silence can be a sign of his shame and express contrition. Sebastian’s words commenting on the appearance of Ferdinand and Miranda, "A most high miralce", may indicate his amazement and acceptance of a benign providence. Both appear to be ready for the final reconciliation. Stressing the personal liberation of all characters on Prospero’s island, La TempÍte included the two wicked brothers in the final mood of reconciliation. Most modern productions, however, make Sebastian’s lines ironic and present Antonio’s silence as the evidence of his unwillingness to return the dukedom and accept Prospero’s forgiveness. James Hayes and Richard Haddon Haines remained stubbornly outside the reconciliatory circle. CHeek by Jowl went as far as presenting an unrepentant Queen of Naples - Alonso became a Margaret Thatcher look-alike, Alonsa. Such an interpretation, however, went against the text and necessitated significant cuts. Other productions have stressed not so much Antonio’s unwillingness to accept forgiveness as Prospero’s difficulty in forgiving, an interpretation warranted by his ambivalent wording:

For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother

Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive

Thy rankest fault – all of them.

In a production interpreting the play as a journey of self-discovery, Michael Bryant emphasized the hard-won quality of Prospero’s forgiveness of his brother. Max von Sydow was even tempted to smash Antonio’s face with his staff before he decided to forgive him. Prospero’s recognition of Caliban as his own, "This thing of darkness I / Acknowledge mine" is often interpreted as acceptance of his darker self. Sam Mendes, however, presented the line as the master’s reaction towards a creature who will always need rigid control. In his production Prospero imprisoned David Throughton’s repentant Caliban in the skip. As with Cheek by Jowl’s unrepentant Alonsa, this staging necessitated rewriting Shakespeare’s text: the pronoun in Prospero’s line, "Go, sirrah, to my cell", was changed to "thy".

Prospero’s last action is the release of Ariel. This moment can express a close, friendly relationship between master and servant as in La TempÍte, where Ariel almost preferred staying with Prospero to regaining his freedom. But it can also convey Ariel’s impatience at the prospect of his liberty. Thus, Mark Rylance’s Ariel had already gone when Propsero spoke the words which were supposed to release him. Sam Mendes offered a startling revision of the entire relationship between Prospero and Ariel. The previously unemotional, efficient servant turned to Prospero and, spitting in his face, released the hatred and disgust accumulated during the twelve years of his servitude. The subsequent epilogue for Alec McCowen became the painful, weary recognition of his project’s failure and a true prayer for pardon and relief from the "good hands" of the audience. John Wood turned the Epilogue into the desperate plea of an insecure man for attention and affection. Both interpretations exemplify modern production’s efforts to avoid presenting Prospero as the retiring Shakespeare’s double saying his serene farewell to the stage.

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