The Tempest – REVIEW
Image: Richard Roxburgh is Prospero in the STC's The Tempest. Image: Daniel Boud
The Sydney Theatre Company’s current production of The Tempest takes Shakespeare’s final major play as we know it and gives it the whole 180 treatment.
Director Kip Williams stated at the out set that the overarching theme would be “letting go” which he achieves with new interpretations of the script and characters, often casting against gender or, as in the case of Ariel, age.
Richard Roxburgh’s Prospero has spent 12 years on an unnamed island somewhere in the Mediterranean, honing his sorcery skills with the intention of seeking revenge on his brother Antonio and the now king of Naples Alonso for unseating him as Duke of Milan, forcing him to flee with his infant daughter Miranda.
The island is uninhabited except for an elemental sprite called Ariel and the half man, half beast Caiiban, the island’s original inhabitant.
The Tempest opens with Prospero in full magus mode standing atop a large rock as the elements rage, while he calls up the spirits and creatures he has enslaved.
From the first moments you get the feeling that you are entering a truly magical world of four characters isolated in space and time that is further enhanced from the first appearance of the formidable and very fit Peter Carroll as an older and wilier Ariel than we are used to seeing portrayed.
Worimi man Guy Simon is formidable as Caliban, both for his treachery and his powerful soliloquy about Prospero’s imprisonment of him an an island that once belonged to him and one that he where he finds beauty. and a sense of belonging.
Even in his position of unequal power, Caliban refuses to bend to Prospero’s will.
First-timer Claude Scott Mitchell is well cast as a Prospero’s naive Miranda 15 year old daughter who falls for the equally naive Ferdinand ( Shiv Palekar), son of Alonso, but it would not have hurt to have given Miranda’s character a bit more sprite than white.
Gamilaroi woman Megan Wilding brings power and focus to the role of Gonzalo, the old lord who helped Prospero escape Milan.
The Tempest unfolds in a misty world that at different times conceal or reveal, partly controlled by Prospero struggling to control events and at other times when the elementals take charge.
The set by Bangarra designer Jacob Nash is both simple and effective by giving focus to the many elements that rage and swirl throughout the play and is strikingly enhanced by Nick Schlieper’s lighting design and Stefan Gregory’s sound and aural landscape.
In this The Tempest, Williams has chosen to redeem the characters, particularly that of Prospero, when he states that he only wants to return to Milan to see Miranda marry Ferdinand and allows those who were hell bent on destroying him to have safe passage off the island.
By ‘letting go” we actually become stronger and with Roxburgh in full power in this production it is no surprise that the season has been extended.
