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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > September > 12 > Entry
Review: Austin Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’
A group of people survive a terrible accident and land on a remote island inhabited by a plotting sorcerer and a host of supernatural beings. Though this may sound like the plot of television’s ‘Lost,’ it’s actually the premise behind William Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest.’
In Austin Shakespeare’s current production, directed by Ann Ciccolella, the title storm that opens the show is a big, rollicking one, made especially thrilling by the way lighting designer Jason Amato’s lightning bolts cut through an unbelievably dense fog.
When the chaos ends, a complicated story begins to unravel. Prospero (a dignified Steve Shearer) is a magician and the exiled Duke of Milan, who has been living on a mysterious island for 12 years with his daughter, Miranda (Lindsley Howard).
He conjured the storm to wreck a ship carrying his deceitful brother, Antonio (David J. Boss) and the current King of Naples (Tom Stephan), in order to seek some kind of redemption for the events of the past. The shipwreck sets in motion all kinds of elaborate subplots, involving enchantments, attempted murder, romance, and way, way too much alcohol.
Most of the performers are quite good at bringing Shakespeare’s language to life. The comedic trio of Stephano, a drunken butler (Nathan Jerkins), Trinculo, a jester (Michael Dalmon) and Caliban, a ‘monster’ enslaved by Prospero (Michael Amendola) are all highly animated and skilled at physical comedy. As Miranda’s love interest, Ferdinand, Travis Emery is sweetly genuine.
Despite the cast’s efforts, the staging is often static, and with such an expository script, a little more physical action would help focus the audience’s attention. The production design hits an odd note as well — it doesn’t create a fantastical island atmosphere as much as it creates a surreal, stark landscape reminiscent of the far out island inhabited by Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow in ‘Pirates of the
Caribbean 3.’
Still, Austin Shakespeare’s production is timely. The 400th anniversary of ‘The Tempest,’ is approaching, and a new film adaptation starring Helen Mirren as a gender-swapped Prospera (directed by Julie Taymor) will be released soon. This might be just the time to catch a theatrical production of the show before the film
leaves indelible images.
‘The Tempest’ continues 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays through Sept. 26 Rollins Studio Theatre Long Center. $23-$29 ($15 for students) www.thelongcenter.org
Claire Canavan is an American-Statesman freelance critic.
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