The play we are currently working on for our assessment in March is
William Shakespeare's "The Tempest."
William Shakespeare's "The Tempest."
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| The Wreck of a Transport Ship (1810) by JMW Turner, photographed by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon. |
Synopsis
Alonso, King of Naples, is returning from his daughter's wedding, travelling by ship. With him is his brother Sebastian, his son Ferdinand, the Duke of Milan Antonio, and an old Milanese courtier named Gonzalo. On their journey, there is a storm which wrecks the ship and casts the people on board into the sea.
Prospero and his young daughter Miranda are upon the island, watching the shipwreck from shore.
Prospero explains to Miranda for the first time ever how they came to be on the island.
Twelve years ago Prospero was the Duke of Milan, but his brother Antonio overthrew him. With the help of Gonzalo, Prospero managed to escape on a boat with only his baby daughter and his books about magic.
The two of them ended up on the island, and there was only one inhabitant, Caliban. He was a savage creature who was hardly human, and Prospero made him his slave.
Spirits lived on the island, and Prospero found a spirit named Ariel imprisoned in a tree by a witch named Sycorax, Caliban's mother. She had died after imprisoning Ariel, and Prospero set him free, under the condition that Ariel was to serve him.
The passengers from the shipwreck are cast onto the island, and are unharmed; not even their clothes are damaged or wet. Alonso believes that his son Ferdinand has died, but really he was just washed up alone on another part of the island.
Ferdinand and Miranda meet and fall in love immediately, Ferdinand being the only man Miranda has ever seen apart from her father and Caliban. Prospero uses magic to control Ferdinand's movements and make him perform physical labour. Ariel pesters Prospero to set him free and Prospero promises to do so, once Ariel has done a few more tasks for him.
Ariel takes Alonso,l Sebastian , Antonio and Gonzalo towards Prospero's cell,. On their journey, Antonio and Sebastian plan to kill Alonso so that Sebastian can be king, and Ariel prevents them from killing him.
Two other people who were upon the ship and have been cast onto the shore are Stephano, a butler, and Trinculo, the court jester. On their wanderings, the two men meet Caliban, and he gets them to help him overthrow Prospero. The three get drunk and set off for Prospero's cell, and Ariel reports their plot to Prospero.
Meanwhile, Prospero has released Ferdinand from his spell and has given his blessing for him to marry Miranda.
When Stephano, Trinculo and Caliban arrive at the cell, they are distracted by brightly coloured garments which have been set as a trap for them, and they are chased off by a group of spirits who are in the form of rabid, demonic dogs.
Ariel brings Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio and Gonzalo to the cell where they meet Prospero, who renounces his magic and reveals himself to them.
He forgives his brother and makes plans to return with them to Milan and resume his place as the Duke. Ferdinand and Miranda are betrothed and come into the cell, and Alonso discovers that his son is not dead after all. Ariel brings Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo into the cell, and they are also forgiven.
Some sailors enter and announce that the ship has not been wrecked at all and is safely in harbour.
Prospero sets Ariel free.
There is a celebration and they all plan to set sail the next morning.
We're interpreting the adapting the play in our own way, of course.
The costuming style we've chosen in steampunk, which I think is absolutely awesome.
Themes of the play
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| "THE TEMPEST" Helen Mirren. Ph: Melinda Sue Gordon ©2010 Tempest Production, LLC. |
Justice and revenge: The entire story of the Tempest is, essentially, based around a wrong that was done to Prospero. He was usurped from the throne by his brother Antonio, and forced to run away with his child, Miranda. He then decides to get his "revenge", if you like, in the journey to going home and resuming his place on the throne. It seems simple enough; he has been treated badly, and so he deserves to get what he wants and have "justice", but as it turns out, this involves the complete imbalance of him having power over every other character and being the person who gets to decide other's fates.
He is dead set on getting even with his brother, but his hypocritical notion of justice is definitely warped. For example, he has no issue with enslaving both Ariel and Caliban on his path to getting his throne back, although the two of them have done nothing to him. So, his justifications for his actions towards Antonio (that he has been wronged by him in the past) leave him without a leg to stand on when you look at it objectively and see how he is treating other characters for no reason.
Of course it is not as black and white as"this is justice, this is not", and Prospero is still a character we can sympathise with. No, his ideals of justice and revenge are not perfect, but this does not make him a villain, as you might perceive from what I have just said. In fact, the way in which he has this control over the play and almost becomes a storyteller, himself perhaps even mirroring the position of Shakespeare as the writer, comes close to actually removing him from being judged on the basis of his decisions. It makes him seem, in a way, almost separate to the story, and therefore his morals regarding justice and other such things are much more difficult to scrutinise.
Power: Power is a huge theme in the Tempest, from start to finish. It constantly poses the question of different levels of authority and power, and who really deserves what control in different situations.
From the very beginning of the play, we are shown some having power over others in even the simplest form as we are presented with the Master, Boatswain and the Mariners.
From the very beginning of the play, we are shown some having power over others in even the simplest form as we are presented with the Master, Boatswain and the Mariners.
The Master is, quite naturally, in charge, and the others are to do his bidding on the ship and be (to quote a later scene in the play) "correspondent to command". But at this point they are in a terrible storm, close, they believe, to losing their lives, and everything is out of control. At this point does it become unnatural for one person to have power over another? How much does authority really matter in circumstances this dire?
This is possibly the most subtle mention of power, as it feels like one of the last things you're thinking about during this frantic scene.
However, as the play goes on, power is what seems to be the motivation fuelling most of the characters.
Prospero has power over everyone on the island, through his arts and magic, and he uses and at some points abuses this power throughout the story. He has enslaved Caliban, the only inhabitant on the island when he arrived, and has also employed Ariel (a spirit) to do his bidding for him. He holds vast amounts of power and control over everybody, as the shipwreck is his doing, and he uses Ariel and his magical abilities to then control the other characters almost like puppets.
He is even controlling his own daughter's fate, in a now old fashioned and possessive sense, albeit out of love and wanting to protect her. He controls Ferdinand, the man she falls in love with, and the fate of the couple is decided by him, not only through his magic but also eventually his blessing.
This whole time he is working towards one ultimate goal: resuming his Dukedom. Or, in other words, to get back his power at his actual home.
And Prospero, though he rules over all for most of the play, is certainly not the only person to display the desire to harness power, it's an underlying theme in the entire play.
was the desire to rule that made Antonio usurp his brother in the first place, it's the desire to rule that is motivating Sebastian and Antonio to kill Alonso. Even the comic relief, Stephano and Trinculo, simply cannot resist the charming allure of ruling over the island, and they leap at the chance to have Caliban believe they rule over him. It's yearning for his freedom and release from being overpowered that steers Caliban to see revenge on Prospero, which the aid of his two new drunken acquaintances.
And Ariel's entire role in the play is based around him doing Prospero's bidding, although he wishes to be free, he is enslaved by Prospero's power.
In some way or another, everyone in this play is driven and almost warped by the notion of ultimate power and control, to the point where nobody is ever on equal footing, someone is always being ruled by someone else.
Colonization: At the time this play was written, the idea of European countries concurring and claiming other lands from around the world from their own was of great interest to many people.
The notion of colonization and overthrowing native people in their own land is greatly explored in this play, primarily through the relationship between Prospero and Caliban.
There is a vast misunderstanding between the two of them, they are completely butting heads and cannot see the other person's point of view.
Prospero arrives on the island and has absolutely no problem with immediately enslaving Caliban and assuming rule of the island. He sees Caliban as a second class citizen, and can't possibly imagine him "understanding" how to rule or being clever enough to do so. This fuels him to believe that he is actually doing Caliban a kindness by teaching him things which Prospero believes to be important, but he doesn't see that he has actually just taken Caliban's freedom and way of life away from him.
Caliban also can't see Prospero's point of view, to him, he has simply been overthrown and enslaved, he doesn't know why Prospero thinks he has been so giving in teaching him language and other such things. This makes him feel hostility towards Prospero, and he behaves violently and aggressively as a result, which only further's Prospero's opinion that he is a savage.
The lack of understanding between the two of them is almost impossible to mend by this point, and now for both of them it feels like they are on opposite sides and much be enemies.
This is representative of the relationship and situation between those who colonize and those who were colonized.
Betrayal and forgiveness: This is, arguably, one of the most simple themes in the Tempest, given the way it is portrayed.
The story is all started because of betrayal, Antonio's act of betrayal towards his own brother when he took the throne from him and effectively forced him into exile.
It's this treacherous act that sends Prospero and Miranda to the island in the first place, and gives Prospero cause to create the tempest.
Prospero has been greatly wronged by his own family and as a result of this, he lost everything except for his books and his daughter. You can see why he goes to such extremes to retrieve what was taken from him.
However, though the entire story is building up towards revenge at the end and, as I discussed previously, "justice" for Prospero, the play concludes with him not exacting some terrible revenge upon his brother, but in forgiveness.
The ultimate note it finishes on is one of compassion, as despite the terrible ordeal he has been put through by his brother, Prospero does what is in my opinion the right thing, he allows it to come to a peaceful end as he says "Welcome, my friends all!" .
Prospero forgives Antonio and Sebastian, and also Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo.
It takes great strength to excuse the behaviour of these characters, but kindness provides us with a happy ending in this play.
Working on The Tempest
Since we started working on the play, I've been doing a lot of research and studying to explore the world of the Tempest.
I'm love Shakespeare plays and have been lucky enough to have seen a lot of them in my life, including the Tempest, but I'll admit that this is one of his plays which somewhat eluded me.
I didn't find it as accessible or easily understandable as many of his others, so tackling it was always going to be quite a big task.
I didn't find it as accessible or easily understandable as many of his others, so tackling it was always going to be quite a big task.
Through our lessons and rehearsals, and our tutorial time, I have worked with the rest of the class to develop an understanding of it.
I've actually found, particularly when we were working still on book, so looking less at how we were going to embody our roles and more at the story itself, that just rehearsing the different scenes and having discussions about it really helped me to get to grips with the Tempest.
I've discovered a lot already and despite my original concerns that I mightn't be able to interpret the play fully, I've totally settled into it.
The way we're learning as we go along is very helpful to me.
We've been applying the theories we learnt about in our Stanislavski assignment when looking at the script and rehearsing.
I have been exploring the play using these techniques, looking at the subtext, throughlines of the characters, their objectives, actions and the given circumstances, and it's helping me to appreciate all the different aspects of the text.
Whilst at home I do research on the internet, reading up on the play, but what I'm finding is that I get most of the answers I'm looking for from the text itself. It's all in there, you just have to be able to pick it out through analysing.
Something that has been very useful to me is that personally, I find the language used in Shakespeare's plays quite accessible, and am able to interpret it with relative ease. This has meant that a large part of the work is already done, as I haven't found myself having to do research in what the characters are actually saying. So I'm focusing more on the parts which I didn't understand instinctively, what lies beneath the text rather than the dialogue itself.
Something that has been very useful to me is that personally, I find the language used in Shakespeare's plays quite accessible, and am able to interpret it with relative ease. This has meant that a large part of the work is already done, as I haven't found myself having to do research in what the characters are actually saying. So I'm focusing more on the parts which I didn't understand instinctively, what lies beneath the text rather than the dialogue itself.
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| Steampunk costume |
The costuming style we've chosen in steampunk, which I think is absolutely awesome.
Although we aren't changing the script in order to fit modern ways, we have been tweaking little parts which make it more obviously or perhaps just visually more relatable to current day.
We are doing our own take on it, as you would do for any piece of work you were performing, but we haven't had to do that any more, in my opinion, than we would have to for something written now.
The text itself, the themes and the story and even the characters are actually just like ones we see in modern fiction and in fact real life to this day, as it is all based on human nature and the recurring things that run throughout our world infinitely.
That's something I find amazing about Shakespeare; just how relevant his work still is.
For example, isn't it just extraordinary that jokes which were written hundreds of years ago are still making audiences roar with laughter today? And that you can go and watch a play from such a long time ago but find that you actually relate to what is happening, even if in some bizarre way?
I'm really enjoying experimenting with the play and adding our own little accents to it, because that is, after all, what makes it our own production.
We have also been keeping in mind our target audience when adapting it however, as we need it to be accessible and enjoyable for them.
One of the most major adjustments we have made in this sense is the actual length of the play, we've cut it down by a fair amount. Although this has meant losing some beautiful passages of text, I think it's for the best.
Ariel
From the moment I heard that we were doing the Tempest, I knew which character I wanted to play. Ariel; Ariel all the way. He is what intrigues me most about this play, I find his role in it and everything about him as a character fascinating.
Being given the chance to play him in our production is like a dream come true, and it's proven itself to be so much fun.
I'm a strong believer that as long as you remain truthful to your character and the imaged circumstances of the text you're working on, you can't go wrong. I have applied this theory to my work as Ariel and it has contributed a lot to my realisation of the part.
I've been studying Ariel's motivations, objectives and relationship with Prospero in detail to provide myself and therefore the audience with a well rounded character.
Over the course of the last few months I have been working very hard on developing my own personal interpretation of the role.
Something which has been an interesting little detour on my journey as Ariel has been the gender of the role. At the start of the process it was simply undisputed in my mind that I was going to play Ariel as a male. Over time however, I've gotten into the depths of what an extraordinarily versatile character Ariel is, and it became more natural to me as the rehearsals went on that I played them as a feminine androgynous character.
There is only one mention of Ariel's gender in the play, in "task Ariel and all his quality", and I changed this to "her quality", deciding that on this one mention I would refer to the character as my own gender pronoun, to reflect the way that I see my role as having feminine attributes, rather than to reflect a definitively female character.
Having this freedom with Ariel's gender somehow made me feel less restricted in other senses too, and this has made me understand further just how important tiny details are to allow you to realise your role.
I've had a clear image in my head of what sort of voice I wanted to portray Ariel as having from the start. I want a soft and understanding voice for Ariel, with a mix of gentile confidence, and I thought that so as not to get too caught up in my head fixating on perfecting those aspects, I would just work on my vocals from a technical point of view throughout rehearsals and let the more sub-textual qualities of my voice come through naturally in what I was saying and how Ariel is feeling.
I've found this to work extremely well for me, and have been relating my work on projection, tone, pitch, articulation, inflection, resonance and pace in The Tempest to my vocal development plan in the rest of our course.
Often times I find myself to be worrying too much about how what I am saying sounds; my voice gets trapped and I don't speak out enough due to these lapses of confidence. I've had to work quite hard at getting through this over the long rehearsal period, and a few times it has come up in feedback. I was told by my tutors to be more open and confident with my voice in the play, not to be shy about the lines and to really spit them out. This has been challenging for me, but I've found this feedback and motivation useful, and I believe that how open my voice is has improved over the last few months.
For me, another huge part of Ariel is their physicality, and this has been one of my main focuses in developing my part. Through rehearsals, classes with Sharon, and research such as watching other productions of The Tempest, I have been accumulating many ideas about Ariel's physicality. I've been looking at the what I want my Ariel's posture, movements and physical presence on stage to be like, and have been trying out lots of different things in rehearsals. Sharon gave me the advice to always try something, even if I end up scrapping it, because that's how you find out what you want to do, and this is what I have been doing.
Flowing, fluid, gentle, naturalistic physicality is what I've been using, in the hope of conveying that Ariel is a spirit visually as well as through the text. It's been enjoyable and interesting, and although I have ended up trying things that haven't worked, this has only further fuelled my determination to perfect my physicality.
By the end of the process I've worked so hard and tried so many different approaches that I have finally come to a place of clarity, and in the actual performances, I was able to feel comfortable with the paralinguistic features of Ariel.
All together working with this role has been an exhilarating and demanding experience, which I wouldn't have changed a single thing about.
For more detailed information, you can see all of my work on Ariel in weekly rehearsal diaries I have been writing, which can all be found in The Tempest label on my blog.
I'm a strong believer that as long as you remain truthful to your character and the imaged circumstances of the text you're working on, you can't go wrong. I have applied this theory to my work as Ariel and it has contributed a lot to my realisation of the part.
I've been studying Ariel's motivations, objectives and relationship with Prospero in detail to provide myself and therefore the audience with a well rounded character.
My own role as Ariel, particularly the physical aspects, has been influenced a lot by Colin Morgan's portrayal in the 2013 production of The Tempest at Shakespeare's Globe. I was totally captivated by him when I went to see it, and it has stayed with me, and has helped me to clarify ways in which I believe Ariel can be really brought to life. I have kept this influence in mind whilst working on my part and it has been inspiring me to experiment with my role.
Over the course of the last few months I have been working very hard on developing my own personal interpretation of the role.
Something which has been an interesting little detour on my journey as Ariel has been the gender of the role. At the start of the process it was simply undisputed in my mind that I was going to play Ariel as a male. Over time however, I've gotten into the depths of what an extraordinarily versatile character Ariel is, and it became more natural to me as the rehearsals went on that I played them as a feminine androgynous character.
There is only one mention of Ariel's gender in the play, in "task Ariel and all his quality", and I changed this to "her quality", deciding that on this one mention I would refer to the character as my own gender pronoun, to reflect the way that I see my role as having feminine attributes, rather than to reflect a definitively female character.
Having this freedom with Ariel's gender somehow made me feel less restricted in other senses too, and this has made me understand further just how important tiny details are to allow you to realise your role.
I've had a clear image in my head of what sort of voice I wanted to portray Ariel as having from the start. I want a soft and understanding voice for Ariel, with a mix of gentile confidence, and I thought that so as not to get too caught up in my head fixating on perfecting those aspects, I would just work on my vocals from a technical point of view throughout rehearsals and let the more sub-textual qualities of my voice come through naturally in what I was saying and how Ariel is feeling.
I've found this to work extremely well for me, and have been relating my work on projection, tone, pitch, articulation, inflection, resonance and pace in The Tempest to my vocal development plan in the rest of our course.
Often times I find myself to be worrying too much about how what I am saying sounds; my voice gets trapped and I don't speak out enough due to these lapses of confidence. I've had to work quite hard at getting through this over the long rehearsal period, and a few times it has come up in feedback. I was told by my tutors to be more open and confident with my voice in the play, not to be shy about the lines and to really spit them out. This has been challenging for me, but I've found this feedback and motivation useful, and I believe that how open my voice is has improved over the last few months.
For me, another huge part of Ariel is their physicality, and this has been one of my main focuses in developing my part. Through rehearsals, classes with Sharon, and research such as watching other productions of The Tempest, I have been accumulating many ideas about Ariel's physicality. I've been looking at the what I want my Ariel's posture, movements and physical presence on stage to be like, and have been trying out lots of different things in rehearsals. Sharon gave me the advice to always try something, even if I end up scrapping it, because that's how you find out what you want to do, and this is what I have been doing.
Flowing, fluid, gentle, naturalistic physicality is what I've been using, in the hope of conveying that Ariel is a spirit visually as well as through the text. It's been enjoyable and interesting, and although I have ended up trying things that haven't worked, this has only further fuelled my determination to perfect my physicality.
By the end of the process I've worked so hard and tried so many different approaches that I have finally come to a place of clarity, and in the actual performances, I was able to feel comfortable with the paralinguistic features of Ariel.
All together working with this role has been an exhilarating and demanding experience, which I wouldn't have changed a single thing about.
For more detailed information, you can see all of my work on Ariel in weekly rehearsal diaries I have been writing, which can all be found in The Tempest label on my blog.
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