Tempest Blogger's: Post 2

Hi Tempest Blogger's

For your second post, I'd like you to do a little preliminary research into restoration adaptations of Shakespeare's The Tempest.  To get you started: important revisions of The Tempest are authored by John Dryden & William Davenant, Thomas Shadwell, and Thomas Duffett.  Track down some information about, and ideally even some text from, any of these adaptations, compare it to the Shakespeare text we just studied, and post your conclusions for your classmates.

Tempest Performances update

Hi all!

The director of the Tempest got back to me (very generously) as follows:

I will arrange the following:

9 tickets for 2/17

5 tickets for 2/18.

They'll be at the door in your name. All comps.

Thank you very much! And if it would help you to have me or (some of) the cast come and visit one of your classes, just let me know.


So to see the play, just go to the scene dock theater on your specified night and ask for your ticket under my name.


I also would love to take him up on his invitation to talk to the class, schedule permitting, so I plan to ask him to come the week of Feb 20th (after we have all seen the performance).

Visualizing Caliban

I can’t say I remember how I visualized Caliban the first time I read The Tempest because I was reading it as a script with an actor already cast in the role. This time, though, especially after I read Prospero’s description of him being a “freckled whelp… not honored with a human shape,” I envisioned him as physically resembling someone like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. That early description and Prospero’s clear mistreatment of him made me think of him as a young man with unfortunate physical deformities that was despised by society, simply because he did not look like them.

Then I watched the MFA production where Caliban was played by a handsome actor whose only “monster-like” qualities were an odd, seaweed-type wreath on his head and his pigeon-toed walk. However, I was still rather horrified by the choice because the actor who played Prospero was white and the actor who played Caliban was black.

Now, I know I’m qualifying, but before I continue with why I this caught my attention, I feel like I need to mention two things. 1) I got over my horror very quickly because the MFA cast is actually very diverse, and Miranda and Ferdinand were also played by African-American actors. 2) I have been in several classes recently that look more closely into racial constructs and how perceptions of race have affected past and present societies, so I feel like I tend to notice more situations like this.

This momentary horror got me to thinking about how people putting on the Tempest cast Caliban. Does the casting or visualization of Caliban reveal what we find monstrous and unacceptable in our society? I thought back to my high school production and realized that the actor who played our Caliban, though a brilliant actor, was also not known for his charming personality and he was considered a bit socially awkward around school. The MFA’s choice for Caliban did not really call into question issues of race, but I did look at the cast for the 2010 The Tempest and that Caliban really is the only black actor in a cast of white actors. Even my visualization of Caliban was of a human being with physical deformities rather than an actual monster.

All of this made me wonder, what would the Caliban actor in Shakespeare’s time have looked like? Would they have made him look fish-like as Trinculo claims later in the play?  Would they have used a person who looked physically different in skin-tone or body shape? Would they just have expected the audience to project their own vision onto the actor?

I decided to also see how The Royal Shakespeare Company performed Caliban. I was a bit surprised by their choice, but I liked it. According to the website I found, The Royal Shakespeare Company used a monster stage puppet for their Caliban. Now, even though I could probably find research on how monsters who do not have any semblance of human form can still represent a range of human fears and xenophobic tendencies, I personally believe that it effectively removes Caliban as a symbol of who we actually ostracize in society. If Caliban looks like an evil monster out of a fairy-tale, then it seems to me that it would be easier to place Caliban in the role of bumbling villain and focus on other parts of the story.

Caliban 2010 The Tempest (movie)

Caliban The Tempest (Royal Shakespeare Company Production)

I feel like I haven’t come to a definite decision on this topic. I like the idea of Caliban being an actual monster, so that the power struggle between Prospero and Caliban takes a more personal tone rather than a comment on the distribution of power and privilege in society. However, using the role for social commentary could be very effective if the audience is aware of it. Mostly what I have decided from this train of thought is that casting Caliban requires a lot of contemplation on what message his characterization will send to the audience.

Caliban the Cannibal

            Caliban, the son of Sycorax, is seen as the only as the only non-human figure on the island. He inhabited the island before any of the other characters, and claimed it as his own. When Prospero and Miranda arrive, Caliban shows them how to survive on the island and in return, Prospero and Miranda teach Caliban their language and religion. After the attempted rape of Miranda, Caliban becomes enslaved by Prospero, and their relationship turns for the worst.

            Caliban is viewed as a monster or deformed man. Most of his lines are often short and simple, but his speeches that express his are often wordy and beautiful. His most famous…..

Act3.3:134-142

Caliban: But not afeard: the isle is full of noises,

Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

Wil hum about mine ears; and sometime voices

That, if I then had waked after long sleep,

Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,

The clouds methought would open and show riches

Ready to drop upon me, that, when I waked,

I cried to dream again

            This speech is given when Caliban is trying to be accepted by Stephano. He spends much “God”, Stephano the drunk. These scenes in the play are obviously viewed as the comedic parts, as a fool is being taken advantage of by everyone. Similarly, Caliban is kind to Stephano just as he was with Prospero. It seems as if he views them as a sign of hope since he was betrayed by Prospero, but yet again, Caliban gets the short end of the stick as the play progresses. It is the uncultivated that continuously being usurped by “natural” men. 

Kyle T. Doss

Rock Fish

The identities of the characters are each in a state of liminality on the island: There are no easily identifiable villains and heroes, from many perspectives the characters experience a strange type of identity crises on the island. The dual identities that the characters are seemingly unable to reconcile manifests itself figuratively when Trinculo invades Caliban’s personal space hiding inside of his cloak. The oddness of the scene can thus be used to question the value of identity, as neither Trinculo nor Caliban correctly identify one another’s identities and simultaneously intimately occupy the same space.

What is the value of being at the top of a hierarchy; or even, what is the disadvantage of being on the bottom of one? Trinculo isn’t royal or divine by any means; he is a jester—an incredibly low status figure. Regardless, Caliban, a character that is himself a veritable contradiction—between human and fish, bush and rock, slave and monster—thinks he’s a god. At that moment, regardless of the reality of the situation—the reality that specifies hierarchal position—Trinculo is a god, not a jester; at the moment Trinculo comes upon the concealed Caliban, he is indeed a piece of foliage. Shakespeare uses this incredible conflagration of identities to question the value of assigning them at all-- whether or not Caliban is a rock or a fish is irrelevant; the fact that the characters, and by extension the readers, can even contemplate the relevance of identity is exactly what Shakespeare is attempting to arouse.

Tempest Performances

Hi all,

So I emailed with the director of the Tempest, and he said the following:

"If you arrange a classroom visit - i.e. have everyone come together - I should be able to organize all tickets for free."

This sounds awesome to me, so I thought I'd post the dates on the blog and then poll people in class W to see if we could coordinate a class visit.  I'm going to put in a plug for the 17th or the 18th, since the Tempest will be freshest in our minds...

let me know!  (and Allison I know you've seen it once already)

Remaining performances are:

Friday, February 17, 2012 – 7:00 PM
Saturday, February 18, 2012 – 8:00 PM
Thursday, February 23, 2012 – 7:00 PM
Sunday, February 26, 2012 – 2:30 PM
Wednesday, February 29, 2012 – 7:00 PM
Saturday, March 03, 2012 – 2:30 PM 

Fake suicide scene from Lear

Here is a link to Lear performance--scroll down the scenes to see the Gloucester suicide bit.  sorry I couldn't figure out how to embed the specific scene.  If I do, I'll come back and change it.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/king-lear/watch-the-play/487/