Live long and Prosper-o

Spirits attired in suits and clown outfits crawling out of a deconstructed stage floor, a floor-lit glass cage, a ‘stone’ torso lying nonchalantly on its side upstage, vaguely recognisable as female despite largely deteriorated breasts… just another production from the Royal Shakespeare Company? Not quite.

The RSC is well known for experimenting with Shakespeare, so when faced with the shipwreck-style décor features ruins, rocks and a moth-eaten stage floor I wasn’t surprised. As usual, they succeeded in making Shakespeare’s The Tempest a visual spectacle as well as an aural delight.

The play opened with Emily Taafe as Miranda sitting at a simple desk listening to a mayday call. Suddenly, the ‘opaque’ glass box behind her is lit up and becomes the ship from which the call is coming from, in trouble in the midst of a storm summoned by her father, Prospero. Those on the ship are his enemies, those who usurped his Dukedom and exiled him to the island he and his daughter now inhabit. Those on the ship are stranded on his island and at his mercy.

The play is one of this season’s ‘What Country Friends Is This?’ Shipwreck trilogy along with Twelfth Night and The Comedy of Errors and explores revenge, forgiveness, love, loss and reunion. Directed by David Farr, The Tempest manages to explore all of these themes without being ironic or farcical in any way.

Jonathan Slinger plays a brilliantly dark and brooding Prospero and his doppelganger, Ariel, performed by Sandy Grierson, really engages with his character with his entire body, and is physically fantastic. The echoes of Prospero’s voice as he rages against the injustice, slamming his staff down on the stage, constantly reminds us that he is in control and wants revenge on those who wronged him. Even during the comical scenes the underlying reminder is there by the use of music, especially Ariel’s, and song, although unfortunately the singing talent didn’t quite measure up to the acting prowess of the production.

In equal measure the jester Trinculo and drunken butler Stephano, played by Felix Hayes and Bruce MacKinnon respectively, make a hilarious duo. No stranger to Stratford, Hayes also starred as Snug in last summer’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and always delivers his lines to great comical effect. I could even see the glistening drool of Amer Hlehel’s odious Caliban from the upper circle. However, I found the love plot between Miranda and Ferdinand uninspiring, dull and utterly predictable in comparison.

The second half of the play really explores the capabilities of the modern stage and is the most visually exciting. Lamps explode; food disappears from tables in a flash; harpies fall from the heavens to torment those below them. Apart from the rather confusing and visual mess of bubbles, taffeta, peacock feathers and glitter that is the masque, the entire play gets better and better as it goes on. The stage was a constant platform for theatrical experimentation and an exploration for what the modern stage can really do without detracting from the play itself.

Ultimately, Farr’s Tempest is probably the best production that I have seen at the RSC to date. It’s visually thrilling, consistently exciting, and a brilliant production to thrill seasoned theatregoers, exciting enough to keep the attention of first-timers and much more easy to follow than many Shakespearean productions I’ve seen due to a clarity of voice and expression and professionalism of all the actors in it, bar none. I know that it’s revision season, but go and see it. You won’t regret it.