This won't be a formal review (even by my very low standards of formality) -- if you want that, the New York Times one is here.
I've seen The Tempest numerous times before, most memorably twice with William Hutt at the Stratford (Ont.) Shakespeare Festival. I probably would not have bothered with another production so soon if it hadn't featured Mandy Patinkin (left) as Prospero. I had a tremendous crush on Patinkin many years ago in his role as Che opposite Patti LuPone in the original Evita (me and men with beards who can sing; it's a problem). You can hear his magnificent voice on the original Broadway cast album. There's enough residual affection left thirty years later that I was curious to see what he could do in the nonmusical role of Prospero in a production by the small Classic Stage Company in New York City.
The answer is...well, he's not William Hutt. But who is? What he brought to the play that I hadn't expected is a surprisingly youthful vigor to the role of Prospero -- a quality which had never really occurred to me before and made me go back and ponder the text a little bit. Prospero is generally portrayed as an old man in the twilight of his years, often supposed to be a stand-in for Shakespeare himself (the play was written near the end of Shakespeare's career and may have been his last solo effort). But let's think about this: Shakespeare was around forty-six at the time; hardly ancient. Miranda is a young teenager in the play; they have been in exile twelve years. Prospero could easily be around forty, or even younger; his heedlessness of his dukedom when he had it (turning over to his responsibilities to Antonio while he immersed himself in his studies) could easily support him being a feckless twenty-year-old and leave him in his early thirties at the time of the play. No need for grey beards in the role at all.
Getting back to this production: Patinkin, if not as sexy as he was at twenty-six, is still plenty vigorous and makes a virile Prospero with, as would be expected, a beautiful speaking voice that was so familiar from listening to Evita that it gave me shivers. He's a very lively Prospero, almost hyperactive at times. His performance is not one for the history books, but I'd call it effective enough and certainly fresh. The surrounding performances are likewise solid but not terribly memorable. It's a decent production, but not a must-see unless you have some secondary motivation or have never before seen The Tempest.
One thing that irritated me: you cannot have it both ways on color in casting. Having a black actor, Nyambi Nyambi, play Caliban brings themes of colonialism, racism, and slavery front and center, especially when you have an Asian actor playing Ariel to emphasize the "otherness" of the island's denizens. (Left, Patinkin and Nyambi as Prospero and Caliban, with Elizabeth Waterston as Miranda in the background; click to enlarge.) Making the play an allegory of colonialism is not exactly original, but it's not a problem, either. It's a very standard interpretation of the text. I studied it twenty years ago as an undergraduate. The shirtless and buff Mr. Nyambi is clearly not "misshapen," despite some interestingly scaly tattoo art on his back, which leads one to interpret that line and of course the "thing of darkness" bit as expressions of racism.
But having made the color of an actor that significant in a way that makes a political point and thus calls attention to the color-casting, you cannot then turn around and expect the audience not to notice that Michael Potts (a fine African-American actor) in his classy turn as Alonso makes a remarkably unlikely father to the equally fine but lily-white Stark Sands as his son Ferdinand. I wouldn't have particularly cared if they'd cast both Alonso and Ferdinand as black, or Prospero and Miranda, or the entire population of shipwrecked nobility, but what immediately leapt to mind in this case was that Alonso was a remarkably oblivious cuckold. Or maybe Ferdinand was adopted. (Did they have much adoption in Shakespeare's time? Wouldn't it be a little inconsistent with the obsession with bloodlines and family? Maybe one could explore adoption as a theme in Tempest...?) This is not a distraction I need in a performance. Color-blind or racially significant casting: one or the other. Not both in one production. You can't make the audience think about race and then tell us not to think about race.
I had a similar suspension-of-disbelief problem this past summer with the casting of Romeo's family in Stratford's Romeo and Juliet, but at least in that one the eyebrow-raising family group was not countered by racially loaded messages in other casting choices. I'm now wondering morbidly if my inability to be color blind makes me racist or whether I can draw a rational line between not caring if a particular role is played by whatever color of actor as long as parent/child pairings are somewhat convincing (and the director isn't making political points with race elsewhere) and not noticing what color an actor is. I can't imagine that not-noticing in real life or imagine telling a black friend that I'd never noticed she was black. (I'm sure she's noticed.) Arrgggh.
Anyway.
Designwise, we're back to sun-bleached off-white for Prospero and Miranda, which seems to be a standard design for The Tempest lately but bores me to death. I also have to admire Prospero's presumed sewing skills, since Miranda's bodice is quite well-fitted for someone who grew up stranded on an island. Maybe Ariel (nicely played by Angel Desai) provides their clothing? But then why is she cursed with the least flattering costume ever? She looked like she was wearing a diaper! Other characters are a bit simplistically color-coded in reasonably good, if unornamented, period costumes. The stage set is a simple sand-patch with a stretched shim above it which is manipulated this way and that for various effects. Having a tiny ship float on it during the storm scene was a commendably effective opening. I also thought the staging of the banquet scene was quite creative: the table and seating were on wheels, enabling the actors to be spun madly around the stage to visually embody their confusion and disorientation.
All in all: good enough, but not fabulous. I'm not sorry I went. It's running a few more days if anyone in the NYC area feels compelled to see it.
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