Word: prospero
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...deliver the eulogy. But even if she didn't eulogize John, it was she and her children who became the emotional center of the service. She reminded the mourners about the love of literature that her mother had bestowed on her and John, and then read Prospero's speech from Shakespeare's The Tempest, a play in which he had performed. It was an acknowledgment that her brother had lived on a big stage but had understood that its "insubstantial pageant" would fade. "We are such stuff as dreams are made on," she quoted, "and our little life is rounded...
...world" so crucial to any production of "The Tempest." He does this by appealing to his contemporary audience's idea of the exotic, as well as to a modern conception of "the other." In the middle of the scenery sits an imposing but unidentified concrete structure. The magician Prospero is dressed not like a sorcerer but instead as an African medicine man. And the music incorporates elements of rap and opera. "Ultimately," says Daniels, "I want to see how one comes to understand the experience of 'the other.'" He does this in part by setting Prospero's experience in such...
Costume designer Gabriel Berry also combines the mysterious with the familiar by juxtaposing the Milanese court's clothing, based on the clothing of seventeenth-century European aristocrats, with Prospero's shaman costume. Ariel and Caliban, dressed and body-painted like native islanders, also contrast effectively with the conservatively outfitted Milanese. The butler Stephano (Charles Levin) and the jester Trinculo (Thomas Derrah) who boast more colorful costumes, go through several changes-including some cross-dressing-after they discover a glistering wardrobe...
Perhaps the greatest strength of this unconventional production of "The Tempest" is Freeman's strong conventional performance. Prospero is a magician exiled from his dukedom who seeks revenge. When the men who betrayed him are near the shore of his island, he sends a storm to wreck their ship and bring them all onto the shore. As he plans revenge, oversees the engagement of his daughter Miranda (Jessalyn Gilsig) to Prince Ferdinand of Naples (Scott Ripley) and foils Caliban's plot against his life, Freeman evokes every doubt, conviction and emotion Prospero experiences. He is temperamental and harsh with...
...Prospero's journey," as Daniels puts it, "is very much [about] what is both lost and gained in exile." The mystery and magic of the production's visual and aural effects create this feeling of exile. But for many people Prospero's renunciation of his magic represents Shakespeare giving up writing in this his final play. Paul Freeman evokes this idea in a powerful performance of Prospero's monologues: After recalling with both enthusiasm and nostalgia what his "so potent art" had once done, he says regretfully. "But this rough magic I here abjure...