I feel bad for Sigourney! That seems like bad direction to me...and to ignore the opportunity for a big fancy robe...the maximalist in me rails against this! Costuming is so integral to a character!
Wonderful examination of this production, Rebekah!
I hadn't seen Prospero before, so I had a look at some film versions and stage versions filmed. I'm new to Shakespeare. Trying to drag my uneducated self into certain aspects of culture I missed out on. Seen Hamlet. And the film of Macbeth years ago.
Seen a few versions of Prospero now. No Prospero I seen come over to my reckoning. They deliver the lines weak. I ain't no actor, but I'd do Prospero magnificent, gusto and flair.
I reckon I could make an audience flinch with my delivery!
I'm sure you would! I agree, it's quite hard to find a really great version - I think the general consensus is that the Animated Tales depiction is how people imagine him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAZKIpWGN_Q&t=1204s I wonder whether modern productions are just a bit scared of engaging with him as a proper magical character? Maybe the reason so many Prosperos fall flat is because we're afraid to embrace the idea of a powerful wizard...
When I hear the classic lines, for example, We are such stuff as dreams are made on… they’re never delivered with the meaning within them. My wife is into Shakespeare and had a silver bangle with that line engraved on it. I always imagined it said with such fever and intention, although I’d never seen it and didn’t know the rest of the play at all. But the actors don’t come over with the Mystic and Shamanic intention in the lines.
I’m uneducated due to being schizophrenic and dyslexic at school in the 80s. I educated meself. But I was a Mystic child and naturally philosophical. I had visions since before I can remember, at least far back as 5 years old. I was haunted by strange entities. Age 9, I stole a book called Mind Power and although I could barely read, I struggled through instructions and mastered each exercise by age 13. A solo mission for a working-class boy who played football and vandalised bus stops with his mates. I found I had a natural talent for telepathy, making things happen, bending reality to my want, visualisation, etc. By the age of 20, I’d invented me own magic system and me own alphabet and numbers, and memorised them. As I learnt more about traditional magic, I realised much of the exercise was intended to make a magician’s mind like how mine was naturally. I had several brain scans and was told I had unusual brain waves.
My madness led me to a life of addiction and crime. I was a criminal for 30 years. In all that time, I used me magic to protect me from law, gangsters, thugs, police, and death. I survived many deaths.
I learnt to read late but worked hard to catch up, as I regarded knowledge as sacred. Started reading at 16 and the most influential thinkers for me that age were Lao Tzu and Hassan I Sabah. So I always wanted to catch up on Shakespeare and what little I knew of it had me so disappointed when I heard the actors play it. Same with many actors reading on Audible. Too feeble.
That particular speech is also beautiful because it's a meta comment about what it means to be a character whose play is ending soon. Prospero is reminding his audience that we too are like characters on a stage and our life, like his, is 'rounded with a sleep.' There's so much going on in that scene - I think you're right that very few people have been able to capture it!
Yeah. Exactly. About the brevity of life, etc. But I also think it has a deeper magical meaning, about the nature of realities, dimensions, etc. As you said, we are actors on a stage. I think it hints at the magician's manipulation of realities, and questions any certainty in perceptions of reality n'all. Maybe I read more into it. I dunno. I ain't a Shakespeare expert. Either way, them lines ought to be told with more gusto than I hear them said. Actors seem to tell them almost with a throwaway comment atmosphere. Too casual and feeble.
Not at all, I think you're right: it's as if Prospero knows about the different dimensions of real and unreal because of his magical study. He can see both the world of his story and the audience watching him. I suppose you could call speaking to the audience a kind of astral projection!
Yeah, that's it. The magician/Shaman can see beyond the curtain of shadow. Beyond the illusion of realities. I reckon that's the esoteric message within the line. And many others. I want to see more Shakespeare plays. I'm ignorant of his work. But I want to see them done by actors and directors who get the ancient wisdoms and coded intentions within the lingo.
I was really excited when I heard Sigourney Weaver was doing The Tempest, but the reviews have put me off going to see it.
I saw Alex Kingston play Prospero at the RSC (2023) and it was a fantastic production. The entire set and costuming made from recycled materials, in fact the whole cast looked like they were at a slightly apocalyptic music festival, the island was covered in rubbish.
Kingston had a staff and a cloak - they didn't look very magical, but on her, with her performance, we did believe her chopped up orange life jacket and tatty dress were the clothes of a magician, and that she had great power.
i love your writing! i learn nothing new about a play when it is recast with women or people of color. mostly,the plays message or intent is sublimated to some political agenda which collapses the story into a sticky paste of ‘see women can do these things too’. i’m a black actress in america. was cast to play mrs warren by a gay man who wanted mrs warren to be a shamed whore. the production sucked as you might imagine and the story hamstrung by his misreading of it and my place in it. sigourney weaver is a well educated and talented actor with a long career playing mostly warrior types. sounds like she never challenged the direction given her and that both director and actress sublimated and killed off the magic and power in the play as if trying to diminish male power. pretty boring intention. i’ve played caliban in that production with a cast of women. utter nonsense the entire production. these things in the hands of too many women turn into a war against something or someone instead of the producing of a great play.
Thanks so much! Wow, it sounds like you've had plenty of fascinating and frustrating experiences with the play. For me those sorts of changes only work if they are part of a coherent grammar within a particular production. I do think there's a difference between a person playing a character who is the opposite sex (pretending to be a man, for example) and a person playing a character who has *become* the opposite sex (pretending that the character is actually female). After all, women weren't allowed to perform on stage at all in Shakespeare's day so all the female parts had to be played by men. People understood that they were representing women, and they were still able to produce some of the most fascinating female characters ever created. It feels a bit like the logic behind fantasy realms: as long as it makes sense in the world of the story for there to be a dragon, I'll accept the dragon, but if one swoops in out of nowhere and is never acknowledged, I won't believe what's going on!
A real shame about the Weaver production - she deserves more than that. I played it badly in my youth, struggled with a huge coat and a big gnarly staff, and did not have either the gravitas or the verse-speaking to pull it off. We did have a female Caliban, though, which fed into our director's vision of Prospero as a nasty old patriarch. Typecast as a villain, was I.
As for best productions, I loved the animated tales, and my first exposure was the Mendes production from '93 - I remember Troughton being fantastic (he's so good at the grotesques) and Simon Russell Beale's excellent Ariel spitting in Prospero's face at the end.
I don't think I've ever seen a female Caliban, that maps fairly neatly onto the class hierarchy between Prospero and his servants. On the other hand it would remove that fascinating complicating fact that Caliban wanted to rape and impregnate Miranda. Without that he's almost wholly sympathetic!
I agree about the animated tales, it's beautifully done! Simon Russell Beale was also a great Prospero - I'm sure he's a fun but difficult role to play!
I didn't see the production, but one thing we can say for it is that it spurred you to write an absolutely cracking essay, Rebekah -- so potent art, indeed!
Fantastic insight. I haven't seen it, but I read the reviews and I think you've hit the nail on the head. Truth be told, my favourite version is the little puppet one they did of some of Shakespeare's titles? It was so lovely. I think it was 'the animated tales.' I used to show them to year 7 when we were studying one of the plays. Its such a shame that they pulled an A lister out and let her down like that.
This is a really fascinating read as someone who has played Prospero/Prospera twice - once in a fully-staged production and once in a bar. Verse work aside, you're absolutely right that a propless Prospero is one that has a harder job cut out for them.
For the full production I was in, I had a long trailing cloak as my "magical garment" and a wooden staff with built-in lights I was able to control myself to visually demonstrate moments of magic. That, combined with a full light/sound design, did a LOT to set up the tone and feel of magic in the play.
But you don't need all that for a successful show. In the bar performance, all I had was a small leather-bound book and a costume of vaguely Renaissance pieces I pulled from my closet. In a scenario like that, the actor has to do a bit more work to endow the objects with meaning/power, but it is absolutely doable. And, in my opinion, the vocal delivery of those speeches about conjuring become even more important to nail. But, I still had my book prop, I still had a magical garment that was removed once all that magic was abjured, and I still had a cast that helped reinforce the ideas of magic and authority present in the character.
I'm always so excited to see a woman play a leading man in a Shakespeare play, so it's a bummer that Weaver had all this working against her.
Thanks so much, Kailey, this is a great insight! I didn't talk much about scale here but the fact that the Theatre Royal is so massive definitely compounded all the problems. I can imagine it being a bit less taxing to have minimal props if your audience is nice and close, but to be honest a good actor can make both work (it sounds like you did just this!) I love your phrase 'endow those objects with meaning/power' it cuts right to the heart of that balance between words and props. I wonder whether that kind of presence is just better cultivated in actors who are used to live audiences rather than cameras?
I feel bad for Sigourney! That seems like bad direction to me...and to ignore the opportunity for a big fancy robe...the maximalist in me rails against this! Costuming is so integral to a character!
Wonderful examination of this production, Rebekah!
Thank you, Sheila! I agree, I felt like she deserved better.
It's a long time since I saw it but enjoyed (if that's the word) the Derek Jarman film. This should be the trailer. https://youtu.be/R0Xg7k5hHDM?feature=shared
I had completely forgotten about that version but I’ve now had a flashback to my poor English teacher trying to fast forward through the rude bits!
I hadn't seen Prospero before, so I had a look at some film versions and stage versions filmed. I'm new to Shakespeare. Trying to drag my uneducated self into certain aspects of culture I missed out on. Seen Hamlet. And the film of Macbeth years ago.
Seen a few versions of Prospero now. No Prospero I seen come over to my reckoning. They deliver the lines weak. I ain't no actor, but I'd do Prospero magnificent, gusto and flair.
I reckon I could make an audience flinch with my delivery!
I'm sure you would! I agree, it's quite hard to find a really great version - I think the general consensus is that the Animated Tales depiction is how people imagine him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAZKIpWGN_Q&t=1204s I wonder whether modern productions are just a bit scared of engaging with him as a proper magical character? Maybe the reason so many Prosperos fall flat is because we're afraid to embrace the idea of a powerful wizard...
When I hear the classic lines, for example, We are such stuff as dreams are made on… they’re never delivered with the meaning within them. My wife is into Shakespeare and had a silver bangle with that line engraved on it. I always imagined it said with such fever and intention, although I’d never seen it and didn’t know the rest of the play at all. But the actors don’t come over with the Mystic and Shamanic intention in the lines.
I’m uneducated due to being schizophrenic and dyslexic at school in the 80s. I educated meself. But I was a Mystic child and naturally philosophical. I had visions since before I can remember, at least far back as 5 years old. I was haunted by strange entities. Age 9, I stole a book called Mind Power and although I could barely read, I struggled through instructions and mastered each exercise by age 13. A solo mission for a working-class boy who played football and vandalised bus stops with his mates. I found I had a natural talent for telepathy, making things happen, bending reality to my want, visualisation, etc. By the age of 20, I’d invented me own magic system and me own alphabet and numbers, and memorised them. As I learnt more about traditional magic, I realised much of the exercise was intended to make a magician’s mind like how mine was naturally. I had several brain scans and was told I had unusual brain waves.
My madness led me to a life of addiction and crime. I was a criminal for 30 years. In all that time, I used me magic to protect me from law, gangsters, thugs, police, and death. I survived many deaths.
I learnt to read late but worked hard to catch up, as I regarded knowledge as sacred. Started reading at 16 and the most influential thinkers for me that age were Lao Tzu and Hassan I Sabah. So I always wanted to catch up on Shakespeare and what little I knew of it had me so disappointed when I heard the actors play it. Same with many actors reading on Audible. Too feeble.
That particular speech is also beautiful because it's a meta comment about what it means to be a character whose play is ending soon. Prospero is reminding his audience that we too are like characters on a stage and our life, like his, is 'rounded with a sleep.' There's so much going on in that scene - I think you're right that very few people have been able to capture it!
Yeah. Exactly. About the brevity of life, etc. But I also think it has a deeper magical meaning, about the nature of realities, dimensions, etc. As you said, we are actors on a stage. I think it hints at the magician's manipulation of realities, and questions any certainty in perceptions of reality n'all. Maybe I read more into it. I dunno. I ain't a Shakespeare expert. Either way, them lines ought to be told with more gusto than I hear them said. Actors seem to tell them almost with a throwaway comment atmosphere. Too casual and feeble.
Not at all, I think you're right: it's as if Prospero knows about the different dimensions of real and unreal because of his magical study. He can see both the world of his story and the audience watching him. I suppose you could call speaking to the audience a kind of astral projection!
Yeah, that's it. The magician/Shaman can see beyond the curtain of shadow. Beyond the illusion of realities. I reckon that's the esoteric message within the line. And many others. I want to see more Shakespeare plays. I'm ignorant of his work. But I want to see them done by actors and directors who get the ancient wisdoms and coded intentions within the lingo.
I was really excited when I heard Sigourney Weaver was doing The Tempest, but the reviews have put me off going to see it.
I saw Alex Kingston play Prospero at the RSC (2023) and it was a fantastic production. The entire set and costuming made from recycled materials, in fact the whole cast looked like they were at a slightly apocalyptic music festival, the island was covered in rubbish.
Kingston had a staff and a cloak - they didn't look very magical, but on her, with her performance, we did believe her chopped up orange life jacket and tatty dress were the clothes of a magician, and that she had great power.
I can imagine her being great! She's definitely got the presence to transform the ordinary into the magical.
i love your writing! i learn nothing new about a play when it is recast with women or people of color. mostly,the plays message or intent is sublimated to some political agenda which collapses the story into a sticky paste of ‘see women can do these things too’. i’m a black actress in america. was cast to play mrs warren by a gay man who wanted mrs warren to be a shamed whore. the production sucked as you might imagine and the story hamstrung by his misreading of it and my place in it. sigourney weaver is a well educated and talented actor with a long career playing mostly warrior types. sounds like she never challenged the direction given her and that both director and actress sublimated and killed off the magic and power in the play as if trying to diminish male power. pretty boring intention. i’ve played caliban in that production with a cast of women. utter nonsense the entire production. these things in the hands of too many women turn into a war against something or someone instead of the producing of a great play.
Thanks so much! Wow, it sounds like you've had plenty of fascinating and frustrating experiences with the play. For me those sorts of changes only work if they are part of a coherent grammar within a particular production. I do think there's a difference between a person playing a character who is the opposite sex (pretending to be a man, for example) and a person playing a character who has *become* the opposite sex (pretending that the character is actually female). After all, women weren't allowed to perform on stage at all in Shakespeare's day so all the female parts had to be played by men. People understood that they were representing women, and they were still able to produce some of the most fascinating female characters ever created. It feels a bit like the logic behind fantasy realms: as long as it makes sense in the world of the story for there to be a dragon, I'll accept the dragon, but if one swoops in out of nowhere and is never acknowledged, I won't believe what's going on!
A real shame about the Weaver production - she deserves more than that. I played it badly in my youth, struggled with a huge coat and a big gnarly staff, and did not have either the gravitas or the verse-speaking to pull it off. We did have a female Caliban, though, which fed into our director's vision of Prospero as a nasty old patriarch. Typecast as a villain, was I.
As for best productions, I loved the animated tales, and my first exposure was the Mendes production from '93 - I remember Troughton being fantastic (he's so good at the grotesques) and Simon Russell Beale's excellent Ariel spitting in Prospero's face at the end.
I don't think I've ever seen a female Caliban, that maps fairly neatly onto the class hierarchy between Prospero and his servants. On the other hand it would remove that fascinating complicating fact that Caliban wanted to rape and impregnate Miranda. Without that he's almost wholly sympathetic!
I agree about the animated tales, it's beautifully done! Simon Russell Beale was also a great Prospero - I'm sure he's a fun but difficult role to play!
I didn't see the production, but one thing we can say for it is that it spurred you to write an absolutely cracking essay, Rebekah -- so potent art, indeed!
Thanks so much, Dave, I really appreciate that!
Fantastic insight. I haven't seen it, but I read the reviews and I think you've hit the nail on the head. Truth be told, my favourite version is the little puppet one they did of some of Shakespeare's titles? It was so lovely. I think it was 'the animated tales.' I used to show them to year 7 when we were studying one of the plays. Its such a shame that they pulled an A lister out and let her down like that.
Oh my god, me too, I used to use that when I did some summer school teaching! I agree I think that might be the best version I’ve seen…
This is a really fascinating read as someone who has played Prospero/Prospera twice - once in a fully-staged production and once in a bar. Verse work aside, you're absolutely right that a propless Prospero is one that has a harder job cut out for them.
For the full production I was in, I had a long trailing cloak as my "magical garment" and a wooden staff with built-in lights I was able to control myself to visually demonstrate moments of magic. That, combined with a full light/sound design, did a LOT to set up the tone and feel of magic in the play.
But you don't need all that for a successful show. In the bar performance, all I had was a small leather-bound book and a costume of vaguely Renaissance pieces I pulled from my closet. In a scenario like that, the actor has to do a bit more work to endow the objects with meaning/power, but it is absolutely doable. And, in my opinion, the vocal delivery of those speeches about conjuring become even more important to nail. But, I still had my book prop, I still had a magical garment that was removed once all that magic was abjured, and I still had a cast that helped reinforce the ideas of magic and authority present in the character.
I'm always so excited to see a woman play a leading man in a Shakespeare play, so it's a bummer that Weaver had all this working against her.
Thanks so much, Kailey, this is a great insight! I didn't talk much about scale here but the fact that the Theatre Royal is so massive definitely compounded all the problems. I can imagine it being a bit less taxing to have minimal props if your audience is nice and close, but to be honest a good actor can make both work (it sounds like you did just this!) I love your phrase 'endow those objects with meaning/power' it cuts right to the heart of that balance between words and props. I wonder whether that kind of presence is just better cultivated in actors who are used to live audiences rather than cameras?