Word: prospero
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...times, it seems as if Michael Bennett, the show's sorcerer, has borrowed Prospero's wand. He conjures up scenes of potent magic that prove as evanescent as dreams. What is palpably dazzling merges imperceptibly with razzle-dazzle. The sheer richness of the surrounding technique and texture blanches the text. Robin Wagner's scenic design consists of stark metal, light-crammed towers that move and revolve to form a kaleidoscope of geometric patterns. Costumer Theoni V. Aldredge must have purchased her swatches from a rainbow merchant to fashion the slinky, sequined gowns, and Tharon Musser...
...first scene reveals Prospero (Raul Julia) twirling the propeller of a toy helicopter. By seeming Raul Julia design, a real helicopter circled the theater at the opening. The pilot soon flew away, leaving the toy plane, and the play, to crash. The idea apparently was to contrast the airborne with the earthbound in human nature. Here, as in the other main metaphors of the drama, like the playoff of illusion and reality, the power of art and the art of power, this Tempest is hopelessly...
...Prospero is a sage and a master of magic. Julia makes him a little bit of a world-weary sideshow carny barker...
What with the actor's Hispanic inflections, the babel of voices around him and a hot samba, Prospero sometimes seems to be presiding over a banana republic...
...monologues, seems too resentful and angry in his battle of wits with the Count--his "high spirits" reach only middling altitudes. As he counters the Count's designs on his bride-to-be Suzanne with plots of his own, he acts more like an lago than a Prospero. Karen Macdonald's Suzanne follows his lead--spleen overbalances sweetness. Harry Murphy's smug Count and Cheryl Ginannini's hoarse, pouting Countess are closer to the mark--he displays all the insight of a brontosaurs, she the passivity of a wildcat. These are Beaumarchais' hollow hulks of aristocracy waiting for someone...