'A Decent Adaptation' The Tempest by Braham Murray (SRT) 26th May 2015 @ Fort Canning Park
The Tempest, the last play crafted by Shakespeare, is out of the ordinary as compared to his other works. One of the common themes that underlie Shakespeare’s plays are that his plays are mostly based on historical facts and figures, and as well as recurring themes such as conflict and change. The Tempest, however, was one of the deviants from his plays such that there is little conflict and more of acceptance and the ‘young versus the old’ mentality present in the play. It also tests Shakespeare’s imagination as it is not derived from any historical facts and he had to think about the fantasy element of the story by himself.
Meet Prospero, an ex-lord and a sorcerer, banished with his daughter, Miranda, to a deserted isle. Over the years, he freed a spirit, Ariel, which promised him to help him with his needs as long as he released it. Prospero also frees Caliban, whose mother imprisoned Ariel, gaining Ariel’s trust and Caliban’s resentment, as he felt that Prospero is not the king of the isle. Then, Prospero, with the help of Ariel, then generates a tempest at the sea, knowing fully well that the king, his brother and their compatriots are in that ship. Prospero wanted their ship wrecked, as they were the one who called for his banishment. Therefore, the story starts, focusing more on Miranda’s and Ferdinand’s, the king’s son, romance, Alonso, the king, and his compatriots on the isle and Caliban working together with Stephano and Trinculo, the king’s butler and jester respectively, to overthrow Prospero.
The whole stage sets on a book, which is creative and smart as the Tempest, essentially, is a story. The set itself looks very magical, with intricate details such as the sun and the books on the corner, which Prospero mentioned as the only things he brought post-banishment. The play uses different ways to represent parts of the play, such as the sound effects, flashing lightning images and a giant blue cloth to represent the tempest, which I felt was good, based on the location and budget. It helped me to visualize how the tempest felt, which is good as the audience can relate to the characters. Audience interaction was not ignored, as sometimes, the characters appear from an aisle near the audience, which can excite them.
The plot though, was quite insignificant if you compare it to other Shakespeare’s play. Perhaps the amount of dialogue, combined with the use of “ye old” English, it felt hard to understand the deeper meaning for the plot. It cannot be helped though, so the audience needs to take time to understand the play. It was especially difficult to understand Prospero and Miranda’s dialogue in the beginning as they were recited too fast. However, there were underlying themes of the plot that can be relatable to what society faces. The concept of revenge and was resonated much here, especially at the end of the play. I found Alonso very interesting, because even though he portrayed himself to be a nice person, it is weird that so many people wanted to have him killed and overthrown. The ending, I felt, was very flat as nothing really significant happened there. It felt very unsatisfactory due to excessive dialogue and less actions. Well, actions speak louder than words, as they say, perhaps the director can adapt the play to include more actions.
In all, the Tempest play for Shakespeare in the Park, could be improved but it was a somewhat decent adaptation to the play, perhaps as a play to show more of Shakespeare’s other side of writing. More could be done, in terms of adjusting from the original script. Overall, it was a good job.