The Tempest

Shakespeare’s last play solo play, The Tempest presents a big challenge for Amateur Dramatic societies with its magical island setting, strange or drunken characters and underlying theatricality which points to the author’s retirement. At its heart is a tale of revenge and romance under the watchful and powerful force of Prospero and his magical servant, Ariel. As with all Shakespeare plays the key to the success is speaking the verse with the correct iambic pentameter so that the audience can easily tune in to the language and follow the story. 

Shinfield Players and their director rose to this challenge well with an excellent versatile Island setting, interesting use of shadow puppets, a delightful soundtrack of voices, music and sound effects and some wonderful costumes and make up to define the characters. The opening storm scene was rather chaotic with overly dramatic action, far too bright lighting and too many shouted lines and much of language was lost but once they arrived on the Island the cast settled into a more considered calmer and clearer delivery of the verse. 

The leading actors as Prospero and Ariel were magnificent complementing each other well and both creating magical stage presences, controlling the action, and orchestrating the chaos and ultimately resolving the conflict to a satisfactory outcome. So, when Prospero asks the audience to “release me from my bands, with the help of your good hands” and “Let your indulgence set me free”, the audience readily celebrate their performances.

Tackling Shakespeare is a bold choice as the language is challenging and most people have seen versions of the show before. Shinfield Players are fortunate to have a director with a good coherent vision for the show and two performers for the central characters of Prospero and Ariel who spoke the lines well and carried the audience successfully through a very good production.

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