Reader Reviews
Tempest fugit: Prospero's Will (Greenwich Playhouse, Outer London)
Back to Show Details| Score | Comment | Date |
 | It appeared that not many other people made the winding journey on the DLR to the Greenwich Playhouse to watch this new sequel to Shakespeare’s (allegedly) final attempt at putting quill to parchment. I genuinely did not know what to expect from this production not having seen any of Frank Bramwell's other productions. You are immediately hit with a visual bombardment of stimuli, the set is not overly complicated but perfectly suitable for the production and space. The costumes were interesting, all very well presented, although I am not convinced about mixing the different periods, not that it took away from the enjoyment of the show at all. The movement was sublime, Ariel and Caliban threw themselves around the stage with poise and grace (when required). I was a little worried not being overly familiar with the Tempest that the story may confuse but there were enough hints and reminders for that not to affect my understanding or enjoyment of the production. My only criticisms of the show are that there is a little too much reliance on voice-overs in the second half and the ending went on for too long. All of the performances were excellent, although very occasionally it could be a little stylised. A special note must be made of Stuart Horobin who performance as Caliban was quite superb, he seemed to have limitless energy and must have quadriceps comparable to Clarke Kent. - 81.86.132.35) | 12 May 06 |
| Tempest fugit A New Play by Frank Bramwell Time was when every grammar school girl or boy could recognise and understand the painful pun Frank Bramwell seems to have used in the title of his latest play. The pun proves to be the first of many deliciously ironic prods at the disenchanted culture of postmodern England. This is The Tempest become a tragic play. Shakespeare’s spirit haunts us; the current Stratford season bears testimony; his entertainments continue to gain the admiration of the world. And he is ours, arguably the greatest writer ever to grace the planet, whilst we live out the tawdry of disillusioned consumerism. His difficult birth as a son of Adam becomes yet another commercial opportunity. Tempest fugit is a challenging work with much to fathom, impossible matter, full of things rich and strange. Like the recently celebrated Becket, it possesses a veiled message but uttered now in Elizabethan cadencies, echoing from a place where even in the contemporary mind the heart of England dwells. And much of the matter is Bramwell’s; a latter day Caliban discovering fragments from a book Prospero mercifully failed to consign to the waves. This is not a work parasitic on The Tempest. In its own right it takes Shakespeare out of the cultural sepulchre into which we have interred him for four hundred years. Or to borrow an image from the original – we have carried the island that is Shakespeare home in our pockets and given it to our children for an apple. Our complacency towards Shakespeare has bred under the blinding sun of Enlightenment Reason. Instead we are confronted with ourselves, scarcely knowing our world or who we are, whilst holding on to a vestigial culture. Was this not something of the original intent of Shakespeare’s Muse? To come again into the presence of something half-glimpsed, something barely understood, preternatural, as the sometimes-terrifying episodes in the play demonstrate? Unresolved matter - Prospero’s revenge and Miranda’s espousal, Caliban’s obedience and Ariel’s freedom – reappears; Shakespeare himself, in the person of Prospero, is scrutinized by his own spirit as it shares the tortured consciousness modern life generates. If there is a fault in Tempest fugit it is that it risks audiences making the same judgement as made by Joseph II of Mozart’s music - there are too many words, my dear Bramwell! Another is that it is too rich for our jaded palates. The fault lies but in ourselves. - 62.255.32.15) | 10 May 06 |
