Free The Tempest by William Shakespeare Page B

outrage, and frustration to such a degree that Caliban plots his murder—avenging the man who usurped him as ruler of the isle.
    In Sam Mendes’ 1993 production, Ariel’s vitriol was equal to Caliban’s. His dominant command of the island’s magic weakened Alec McCowen’s impact as Prospero, and made Ariel the more imposing figure:
    In our production we had a very interesting portrayal of Ariel. Simon Russell Beale doesn’t really look like an “airy spirit”: he was more of an equal, which made Prospero’s impatience and fury with him all the more justified and understandable. I think when Prospero screams and shouts at an Ariel played by a wispy little (sometimes feminine) person or a child, it makes him appear impossibly bullying. 72
    The watchful stillness of Simon Russell Beale’s blue, Mao-suited Ariel holds the dangerous tension of a coiled spring as its energy is about to be liberated; the ticking of a time-bomb whose moment is about to come. Held by silken bonds of gratitude and the exercise of a power different from, but no greater than, his own, he performs the tasks Prospero sets him with meticulous ease and a hint of contempt at their largely trumpery nature. 73
    The positioning of this Ariel at the center of the stage in the first scene, controlling the magic of Prospero’s storm, was unusual. His power was depicted as equal to Prospero’s, leading to a very strained tension between master and servant. Reviewers talk of Ariel’s barely concealed hatred.
    Prospero’s last action is the release of Ariel. This moment can express a close, friendly relationship between master and servant. But it can also convey Ariel’s impatience at the prospect of his liberty. Thus, Mark Rylance’s Ariel had already gone when Prospero spoke the words that were supposed to release him. Sam Mendes offered a startling revision of the entire relationship between Prospero and Ariel. The previously unemotional, efficient servant turned to Prospero and, spitting in his face, released the hatred and disgust accumulated during the twelve years of his servitude. The subsequent epilogue for Alec McCowen became the painful, weary recognition of his project’s failure and a true prayer for pardon and relief from the “good hands” of the audience.
The Inexhaustible Tempest
    The Tempest
seems to be inexhaustible. Clifford Williams’ pessimistic view of the play was criticized in 1963, but prefigured interpretations to come:
    In this play Shakespeare includes all the themes from his earlier work—kingship, inheritance, treachery, conscience, identity, love, music, God; he draws them together as if to find the key to it all, but there is no such key. There is no grand order and Prospero returns to Milan not bathed in tranquillity, but a wreck. 74
    For Sam Mendes, “
The Tempest
is, among other things about politics in a profound sense: moral and social order in human society. Who commands and why? Who obeys and why?” 75 “In [Michael] Boyd’s hands, this movingly becomes a play about the acquisition of grace and self-knowledge.” 76 David Thacker believes that “
The Tempest
is an autobiographical play … in which Shakespeare is dealing with the nature of his artistic achievement and the need to give up writing.” 77 To James McDonald,
    It’s a tempest of the mind … shaped by people getting rid of extremes of emotion of grief and madness. And from that, rebirth can come.… [It] is about a number of huge opposites: drowning and rebirth, freedom and slavery, revenge and forgiveness, nature and nurture, sleeping and waking, seeming and being. An issue like colonialism is in there, but it’s not all that the play’s about.… Prospero … has to learn to forgive people for the wrongs they have done. And that’s a very difficult thing to do. 78
THE DIRECTOR’S CUT: INTERVIEWS WITH PETER BROOK, SAM MENDES, RUPERT GOOLD
    Peter Brook is the most revered director of the second half of the twentieth century