Download Background on the play

“Our Revels Now Are Ended”
THE TEMPEST was the first play in the Folio of 1623
suggesting that Shakespeare’s colleagues John
Heminges and Henry Condell believed it to be one of
his most important works.
Shakespeare’s farewell to
the theatre?
The text suggests as such…
…But this rough magic I here abjure…
I’ll break my staff…
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book. (V.1. 50-57)
Scholarship is inconclusive
Associating
Shakespeare with
Prospero provides an
intriguing view of the
play, but THE
TEMPEST can still be
appreciated as the
capstone to his career
for its “superb
synthesis of his
themes, language,
and theatricality.” (820)
It is unique among his works
…seemingly the only play for which there is no
attributable source for its plot.
Several contemporary sources suggest
that he might have been inspired by
accounts of numerous shipwrecks
during the age of exploration. To place
it in a faraway place, he chooses a
mysterious Mediterranean island.
Prospers is the artist-autocrat, creating
situations in which people are tested to
learn about themselves and their
values.
When faced with the choice, however,
between vengeance or forgiveness, he
chooses forgiveness, even relinquishing
his extraordinary powers before
returning to his home in Milan.
First Performance
 November 1, 1611 at King James’s court theatre at
Whitehall
 Scholars speculate that the folio edition was a revision of
this 1611 text
 Apparently Shakespeare amended the text to honor the
royal wedding in January 1613 when 17-year-old Princess
Elizabeth married Frederick of Heidelberg, the union
which produced the royal Hanoverian line
 Celebrations at that wedding included court
performances of THE TEMPEST and BEATRICE AND
BENEDICK
Public performances
 During his lifetime, the play was produced numerous
times at THE GLOBE and BLACKFRIARS (the indoor
home of the King’s Men)
“Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep…” (IV.1.148-153)
CHARACTERS
Single plot, single locale
 Spans two days in actual time
 Only subplot is the comic rebellion of Trinculo,
Stephano and Caliban which is integrated into the
main plot
 The best example in Shakespeare of Neoclassicism
 Like his early plays, however, it is romantic
dramatizing magic, spirits and monsters
 Its unity of action, however, is its strength,
Prospero’s obsession is limited by time
Traditional/stock characters
Prospero is the artist-magician
William Hutt – Stratford Festival, Ontario
Antonio
Prospero’s Machiavellan brother banished Prospero
from Milan 12 years earlier
Chris Cooper as ANTONIO in the Julie Taymor film
Miranda
Prospero’s innocent daughter
Caliban
Grotesque creature in love with Miranda and enslaved
by Prospero
Djimon Hounsou in the Julie Taymor film
Ferdinand
Young Prince, son of King Alonzo
Joseph Wright engraving (1800) of Ferdinand and Miranda in Prospero’s cell
Sebastian
Villainous brother of King Alonzo
Alan Cumming in the Julie Taymor film
Gonzalo
The faithful Counselor
Ariel
The sprite who carries out
Prospero’s magical commands
(like Puck)
Trinculo and Stephano
The clowns. Stefano is Alonzo’s butler and Trinculo is
the court jester.
Russell Brand and Alfred Molina in the Julie Taymor film
Sources and inspirations
ACTUAL EVENT
Nine English ships set out on a 1609 Voyage to
Jamestown, Virginia. On July 24, a powerful storm
struck the fleet near the Bermuda Islands. Eight ships
escaped. Survivors from the flagship, “Sea Adventure”
constructed two small boats and made it to
Jamestown in May 1610. Several accounts of this
voyage were widely published. Shakespeare’s text
seems to echo accounts by Sylvester Jourdain (A
Discovery of the Bermudas) and a 1610 manuscript by
William Strachey.
Sources and inspirations
THE COURTLY MASQUE
Originated by the French and
popularized at the Courts of
Elizabeth, James and Charles in
England. The fourth act of THE
TEMPEST features a Masque in
which Juno, Iris and Ceres,
goddesses of fertility and
marriage bless the marriage of
Miranda and Ferdinand.
Sources and inspirations
New Technology for the Theatre
Inigo Jones, the foremost designer
of Court Masques developed many
intricate theatrical machines to
provide “the quaint device” which
is employed at the end of the
Masque in THE TEMPEST.
Sources and inspirations
Some Literary Inspirations
Sources and inspirations
Ovid’s Matamorphoses
Language, Music, Dance
Written while Shakespeare was
“at the height of his powers”
so he made use of everything
available to him
Some of his most eloquent
poetry is given to Caliban
The text demonstrates his most
flexible command of Blank
Verse. In addition to Caliban’s
speeches, Prospero is provided
with memorable “arias”
Patrick Stewart, RSC, 2006
Music and Dance
Caliban describes the “thousand
twangling instruments” (III.2.139) Songs and
incidental music was composed, in part,
by Robert Johnson, a musician to King
James. Particularly memorable is Ariel’s
(Come unto these yellow sands). The
dances that accompany the masque no
doubt took advantage of dance-masters
at court
Themes and issues
 Virtue and vengeance. The play considers the
consequences of usurpation…amazingly rather than
vengeance or violence, the play ends in forgiveness
 Art and artifice. As with other of his great late plays,
Shakespeare uses the Theater as a metaphor and
even ends with an epilogue seeking the forgiveness
of the audience.
 Colonialism.Caliban’s character expresses a view of
“the noble savage” that was depicted in
Shakespeare’s day. Revolution, usurpation,
colonialization are all explored in this play.
Staging challenges
 The Tempest and the Shipwreck
Shakespeare’s Globe 2013
The Sprite and the Monster
The Sprite and the Monster
The Masque
The Magic Circle
The Magic Circle
The Magic Circle
The Tempest on stage
 In the Elizabethan era,
many productions at
court, at Blackfriars and
at the Globe
 The Globe and Blackfriars
had stage machinery that
would allow for the
magic effects as well as a
discovery space to be
used when Prospero
discovers Ferdinand and
Miranda “playing at
chess”
17th and 18th centuries
 In 1667, it was re-devised as THE ENCHANTED ISLE by
John Dryden and William Davenant
 It became a popular spectacle throughout the period with
music, musicians, extravagant stage effects. A 1674
operatic adaptation by Thomas Shadwell was revised as
recently as 1959 at the Old Vic and in 1983 by the RSC
 In 1757, David Garrick replaced Shakespeare’s text for the
Shadwell opera at Drury Lane. When his version failed, he
staged the original text, a novel concept for its time.
 In 1787, John Philip Kemble created a pastiche with
elements from Dryden, Shadwell, Shakespeare and some
stage business of his own
th
19
Century: Spectacle and
Calibans
 William Charles Macready (1838) played Prospero
restoring almost all of Shakespeare’s text
 Still most 19th century productions were the operatic
version
 Notable examples are the 1857 production by
Charles Kean and an 1889 production at the
McVickers Theater
 In his 1904 spectacular, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree
invented a pantomime to bridge Acts I and II
Tree as Caliban in 1904
Caliban evolved over time
 In the Shadwell opera, Caliban is a grotesque
 In the 1838 Macready production, George Bennet
played him as a victim of Prospero’s oppression
 William Evans Burton in 1854 played him as a comic
rebel
 Darwin’s ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES (1859) provided
future Caliban’s with new possibilities
Hogarth’s depiction (1753)
The Maly Theatre 1905
Detail from Hogarth painting
The 20th Century
Peter Brooks version in 1957 at Stratford featured John
Gielgud as Prospero and was very simply staged.
1974 – National Theatre
Gielgud was also lauded for his performance in the
1975 production under the direction of Peter Hall.
The production featured a
reproduction of a Jacobean
Court Masque.
At end of 20th century
 Producers seemed more
interested the the play’s
politics rather than its
spectacle. As early as 1934,
Caliban was portrayed at
the Old Vic as a Black man
enslaved by a white
Prospero.
 In a 1945 production,
American Canada Lee,
played Caliban in a fish-like
costume
1970, Jonathan Miller
Max Van Sydow played Prospero.
Both Ariel and Caliban were depicted
as tattered “field slaves.”
American productions
followed suit
 1980 – Shakespeare and Company (Tina Packer) In
this production, Stephano was also black. And in the
course of the action enslaved a black Caliban.
 Geroge C. Wolfe’s multicultural Tempest at the New
York Shakespeare Festival presented Ariel and
Caliban as black slaves to Prospero
Other productions of note
 Caliban as a Jamaican Rastafarian in a 1989
production at London’s OLD VIC
 Peter Brook’s 1990 production featured a white
actor as Caliban. Prosero and Ariel were played by
black actors.
1982 - RSC
Derek Jacobi as Prospero, Alice Krige as Miranda
1993 – Sam Mendes - RSC
 When Prospero set Ariel free,
Ariel spat in his face
 Alec McGowen was
Prospero, Simon Russell
Beale played Ariel
RSC-2006
Patrick Stewart as Prospero, Ariel (Julian Bleach), Miranda (Mariah Gale).
2012- RSC
Kirsty Bushell as Sebastian in The Tempest.
Television and Film
 Very cinematic in nature, the play has enjoyed most
of its success on film…but primarily as adaptations.
Peter Greenway’s Prospero’s Books
1960 NBC Television
Roddy McDowell as Ariel, Maurice Evans as Prospero, Richard Burton was
Caliban and Lee Remick played Miranda. Produced by Hallmark Hall of Fame.
1980-BBC (John Gorrie)
Derek Godfrey (Caliban)
Michael Hordern (Prospero)
David Dixon as Ariel
1980 – Derek Jarman
The Tempest by William Shakespeare, as Seen
Through the Eyes of Derek Jarman was a low budget
avant-garde experiment
Adaptations
Prospero’s Books (1991) Directed by Peter Greenway
Yellow Sky (1948)
Forbidden Planet (1954)
Paul Mazurky’s Tempest (1982)
Paul Mazursky, Molly
Ringwald, Susan Sarandon,
Raul Julia
The Tempest - 1998
Featurning Katharine Hegel and Peter Fonda, it was set in the American Civil War
Julie Taymor - 2010