The Tempest: Now with More Witchiness and Music

T he Tempest is Shakespeare’s most musical play, with more
songs, dances, and ethereal noises than any other. The success of this
production, at Seattle Shakespeare Company, is in its composers: Jesse
Sykes and Phil Wandscher. The local musicians (from the band Jesse
Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter) understand that the vital element of
any piece of music is a simple melody. Everything else can be
complicated, but the melody, the moment of return, must provide an
effortless enjoyment. The beautiful melody that runs through this
Tempest has a dreamy background of dublike effects, which
complement the magical aspects of the story: the illusions, spells, and
tricks of light and words.

My usual reading of The Tempest has been from the position of
postcolonialism, particularly that of the negritude poet Aimé
Césaire. He saw the play in the class terms of a colonizer,
Prospero, and the colonized, Caliban and Ariel—Caliban represents
the brutish underclass and Ariel the enlightened middle class. Director
George Mount completely abandons these colonial themes and focuses on
the theme of senescence. Prospero is at the end of his life and his
powers are waning. He grants his daughter and Ariel their freedom
because youth is on their side. Hana Lass performs Ariel with great
energy and enthusiasm, and Michael Winters performs Prospero with the
air of someone who is terminally ill (I believe he even coughed a few
times). He is a man who is soon to meet his end and is saying good-bye
to the magic show of existence.

What’s strange about this production is its presentation of Ariel.
Usually we imagine Ariel to be made of air and light. This is not the
case with Lass’s acting and attire. Her Ariel is grounded and dark,
earthy and moody. She seems more witchy than angelic. This
interpretation is problematic because it weakens the distinction
between the two slaves. Caliban and Ariel end up being not that
different from each other, making Ariel’s immaterial labor (brain
power) more at one with Caliban’s physical labor (body power). But it
was Shakespeare’s political brilliance (or prescience) to recognize the
difference between the two: Ariel strikes a bargain with Prospero,
whereas Caliban plots to kill him. This links the play to a political
condition emerging at the dawn of capitalism, as mental labor
(bookkeeping, engineering, navigation) was becoming increasingly
privileged and physical labor was becoming increasingly denigrated. But
this line of criticism leads me away from this production and all the
way back to my original position: a postcolonial critique of the
play.