The Tempest

Mr. Improbable and I went to Actors' Shakespeare Project's "The Tempest" last night and you have to go. You just have to. If it's sold out you can go and see if any tickets get cancelled and released the hour before performance. If you don't get lucky, go see a movie at Kendall Square instead. (The show is at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center.)

As we left, Mr. Improbable said to me, "Was that really as good as I think it was?" I didn't answer him. I was on the verge of tears from the sheer physical beauty of the show and the astonishing emotional power of its final scene, and didn't trust myself to speak. Even today I'm having a serious art hangover; discussing the show with a neighbor, she interrupted me to say, "Your face! You look transformed!" It was, quite simply, the most perfect and moving production I have ever seen--and folks, I have seen a lot of theater in my day.

I couldn't find a single flaw in it. Not one. And oh my Lord, is that script studded with potholes that would send any lesser company into tailspin after tailspin. It's Shakespeare's final play, in which he basically said, "Screw it, I'm outtie" and threw in every known genre, and a few that wouldn't get invented for a couple more centuries: comedy, romance, cabaret, horror, science fiction, intrigue, metafiction, adventure.

Somehow, out of this pastiche, ASP pulled together a beautifully coherent production in which every line, every special effect, every costume piece, every song, refracts every other element of the play until a gorgeous, profound, deeply human meditation on the nature of freedom emerges.

What is freedom? The strongest relationship in the show is between the magician Prospero and the island spirit Ariel whom he released from a curse only to enslave. At the end of the show, he frees her--and then turns to the audience and begs us to free him, too, from the obligation to entertain us. Is he diminished when he relinquishes his magic and his supernatural servant, or is he finally free to be human, free of the grudges he has held against his usurping brother, free of the compulsion to stage manage, to direct, to control, free now, like Ariel, to ride the wind and waves, knowing that he cannot control them but can only respond?

I don't want to talk about the absurdly beautiful staging of the show, or its spectacularly clever effects, because I don't want to spoil any surprises. But without getting into a dreary academic debate about authorial intent, I am convinced that this is what Shakespeare had in mind. Maybe the form of the production would be unrecognizable to him, but the effect on the audience would not be. So often, with Shakespeare, the musical interludes stop the action. Here, they drove it forward. So often, the long comic scenes are only grotesque and embarrassing. Here, they were hysterical--the audience was shouting and howling with laughter. So often, the young lovers are unlikeable, appearing to modern eyes driven only by lust and a deplorable level of self-ignorance. Here, you truly rooted for Miranda and Ferdinand, an even trickier coupling than Romeo and Juliet--can she truly love Ferdinand, having known only her father and Caliban? Does he love her, or are his feelings merely the male fantasy of having a woman who has, literally, no one to compare you to? But there was no doubt that they were in love, that long into their lives they'd be bickering and teasing and sharing the mundane and momentous details of their lives over whiskey in bed.

And Ariel! Mariana Bassham plays her not as some wispy, ethereal fairy, but as a crisp, sardonic, and supremely efficient secretary--the perfect admin and chief of staff. If you're fortunate enough to go, watch her face during the last scenes, as sidelined from the action she stares at Prospero, willing him to remember his promise and free her, longing so hard for her liberty and terrified to feel the full extent of that longing, fearing that he has lied to her as he has before.

But of course he hasn't. She can trust him to hold her, and to let her go. Prospero brings the magic, for real, just as this production does. And just as the play does, he knows when to leave it aside and be, simply, human.

NOTE: I'm leaving this open for comments in case anyone else has seen the show and wants to discuss it further. If you haven't seen it, comments might include spoilers (not about the plot, obviously, but about stagecraft details). Anything that comes in tonight won't get moderated until Saturday night.