[NOTE: what follows is a reprint of a theater review from four years ago for a production of The Tempest…perfect fodder for publication on a too-tired-Monday (look for a movie reivew and an interview podcast to come from yesterday‘s activities)…updates to that post will appear in brackets, bolded and red.]
Last Sunday [September 21, 2014], my wife Lisa and I had the pleasure of catching the South Coast Repertory production of The Tempest in Costa Mesa, CA. Now The Tempest holds a pretty special spot in my heart, as it was the first major Shakespeare I ever saw, a magical production with Anthony Hopkins as Prospero at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles back in 1978; I’ll talk about that show more when we get to that play at the end of this project [check out last week’s post!], but suffice to say it was a seminal moment in my love of Shakespeare.
The Tempest is a tough play to pull off. It deals with magic, and how to convey that on stage? It’s not easy. It often comes off as overly solemn or worse, cheesy. The earlier production began with a piece of stagecraft that set a magical tone (especially to this fifteen year-old) and then used that initial shock to carry the play. This [new] production takes a different tack, however. Prospero is a magician, so why not show magic? Real magic (if that’s not an oxymoron).
Continue reading “Theater Review Deja Vu: The Tempest by South Coast Repertory”