by William Shakespeare
seen at the Barbican Theatre on 19 July 2017
Gregory Doran directs Simon Russell Beale as Prospero, Jenny Rainsford as Miranda, Mark Quartley as Ariel and Joe Dixon as Caliban in this RSC production designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis and created with the collaboration of Intel and the Imaginarium Studios.
Two talking points were at the heart of this production: the return of Simon Russell Beale to the Royal Shakespeare Company to play Prospero after a long period of distinguished engagements elsewhere, and the use of cutting edge performance capture technology and other digital effects to enhance the presentation of Ariel and to replicate in the modern age the impact of the resplendent masques that were all the rage in the Jacobean court of the early seventeenth century.
The technical effects come first to the fore in the presentation of an all engulfing storm. The set, which partly represented the skeletal timbers of an enormous ship, seemed at times to roll and dip in the tempest; but it is so vast that the sailors and courtiers were dwarfed, and were so far apart from each other that their panic was hard to make infectious. But these great timbers served well throughout the play as strange but somehow plausible features of the island, while also reminding us of the importance of the sea.
Ariel's first appearance was dominated by the large-scale projection of a motion-capture image and an enhanced voice, but gradually the actor himself became more visible, and it was (wisely) only in the performance of his more onerous 'magical' tasks that the projections were used. The crucial interchanges between master and spirit were conducted by the two actors on an equal footing. The technical wizardry was best exploited during the masque that Prospero arranges for Miranda and Ferdinand, when the whole stage suddenly pulsated with Hockney-esque pastoral splendour as Ceres emerged in a huge billowing dress blazing with flowers.
But technical virtuosity is not the whole story. To modern audiences the power dynamics are problematic, and the comedy characters (Stephano and Trinculo) difficult to find funny. Prospero has the three men who wronged him years ago at last in his power - what will he do? Already we see him impatient with his daughter, imperious towards Ariel and contemptuous of Caliban. He claims in audience asides to be merely testing Ferdinand, but the young prince can hardly know this, and all too often we see that Propsero's grand explanations and purposes are troublingly mixed with more vengeful or selfish motives. At the last he turns from vengeance, even though only one of the three men he has confronted explicitly repents.
In this production, Simon Russell Beale presents us with a Prospero more angry than I have seen before, and it is a compelling and plausible interpretation. Though by his own admission he neglected his ducal duties as a younger man, here on his island he is clearly in charge and used to obedience from everyone else, and his plan to renounce his powers is more costly at an emotional level than perhaps he realised - hence his outbursts of fury and recrimination. Integrated with this fascinating portrayal of a ageing man finding it hard to let go is the actor's total command of the verse, bringing a touching humanity to the great set speeches of relinquishment and farewell.
The other human characterisations are perhaps not so successful. Jenny Rainsford's Miranda is interestingly tomboyish, of course having had no female role models in her island life, but I found her Ferdinand rather too bland, and so somewhat difficult to warm to. (I preferred a previous RSC production, in which Ferdinand was properly snapped out of a courtier's ways on meeting Miranda, and spent the entire interval showing his devotion by working up a real sweat carrying logs, while refusing to regard the task as in any way demeaning. Here, the interval came after this scene, which was more amusingly played to show that Miranda was far better at carrying logs than a cosseted prince could possibly be.) The King and his courtiers had a rather stilted air about them, while the jester and butler raised few real laughs.
As for Ariel and Caliban, each in his own way non-human, these two present their own problems which were here addressed well. Caliban, somewhat reptilian in form (scaly ridges down his back) was articulate and a strong physical presence; Joe Dixon made him neither pitiable nor horrible, even though he was clearly uncouth and understandably resentful. Mark Quartley's Ariel had an innate physical grace and the reserve of an independent spirit unwillingly forced to a degree of subservience. Interestingly, at the moment of his liberation, when he seemed ready to make a last farewell to his master, it was Prospero who spurned the gesture by resolutely turning his back on the spirit who had worked his will for so many years.
All in all, an engrossing production of a difficult play, with a great central performance, but not my absolute favourite.
But technical virtuosity is not the whole story. To modern audiences the power dynamics are problematic, and the comedy characters (Stephano and Trinculo) difficult to find funny. Prospero has the three men who wronged him years ago at last in his power - what will he do? Already we see him impatient with his daughter, imperious towards Ariel and contemptuous of Caliban. He claims in audience asides to be merely testing Ferdinand, but the young prince can hardly know this, and all too often we see that Propsero's grand explanations and purposes are troublingly mixed with more vengeful or selfish motives. At the last he turns from vengeance, even though only one of the three men he has confronted explicitly repents.
In this production, Simon Russell Beale presents us with a Prospero more angry than I have seen before, and it is a compelling and plausible interpretation. Though by his own admission he neglected his ducal duties as a younger man, here on his island he is clearly in charge and used to obedience from everyone else, and his plan to renounce his powers is more costly at an emotional level than perhaps he realised - hence his outbursts of fury and recrimination. Integrated with this fascinating portrayal of a ageing man finding it hard to let go is the actor's total command of the verse, bringing a touching humanity to the great set speeches of relinquishment and farewell.
The other human characterisations are perhaps not so successful. Jenny Rainsford's Miranda is interestingly tomboyish, of course having had no female role models in her island life, but I found her Ferdinand rather too bland, and so somewhat difficult to warm to. (I preferred a previous RSC production, in which Ferdinand was properly snapped out of a courtier's ways on meeting Miranda, and spent the entire interval showing his devotion by working up a real sweat carrying logs, while refusing to regard the task as in any way demeaning. Here, the interval came after this scene, which was more amusingly played to show that Miranda was far better at carrying logs than a cosseted prince could possibly be.) The King and his courtiers had a rather stilted air about them, while the jester and butler raised few real laughs.
As for Ariel and Caliban, each in his own way non-human, these two present their own problems which were here addressed well. Caliban, somewhat reptilian in form (scaly ridges down his back) was articulate and a strong physical presence; Joe Dixon made him neither pitiable nor horrible, even though he was clearly uncouth and understandably resentful. Mark Quartley's Ariel had an innate physical grace and the reserve of an independent spirit unwillingly forced to a degree of subservience. Interestingly, at the moment of his liberation, when he seemed ready to make a last farewell to his master, it was Prospero who spurned the gesture by resolutely turning his back on the spirit who had worked his will for so many years.
All in all, an engrossing production of a difficult play, with a great central performance, but not my absolute favourite.
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