The race.

When I started doing this, I hoped I'd have time for more posts - more reflection and what not - but the Tempest rehearsal process was really a race for me. It was a great experience, it just went so quickly. I think I had 3 or 4 rehearsals, then 3 of 4 run-throughs, and then we opened. During which, I had to learn a *lot* of lines. Racing to get all of this up on its feet has kept me from posting here as much as I'd have liked, or even from doing the amount of thinking about the character I'd have liked to do. It'd be great if I could spend all my time doing this, but, I've got to work too. What can I say? Wizard needs food badly.

I struggled for a while, and in retrospect, I think that struggle was mostly against my own preconceptions. I kept looking for a "hook." I had this idea that at some point, I'd find something in the text that made the character suddenly come into focus. I've had that experience with other characters I've played, and it's an amazing feeling. But now I have the sense that Prospero is so complex that I could play him for months and still feel I was only scratching the surface.

One thing that presented a problem was Prospero's relationship with Caliban. My early thoughts were, why would Prospero keep a creature around who tried to rape his daughter? The idea that they need someone to fetch in wood and make fires is somewhat ridiculous. A man who can command graves to wake their sleepers, who can bedim the noontide sun and call forth the mutinous winds, can probably handle such mundane business with negligible effort. No, there's something more there. And I no longer think it's simply a need to dominate. When Prospero and  Miranda arrived on the island, Caliban was a thing most brutish, and apparently lacked speech. The exchange Prospero has with Caliban in Act I, scene ii suggests Prospero took on a paternal role toward Caliban. Caliban says when Prospero and Miranda first arrived, they made much of him, gave him water with berries in't, taught him how to name the bigger light and how the less that burned by day and night. This is actually a very tender and honest speech, I think. I imagine Prospero sitting with Caliban, staring up into the night sky, showing him the constellations... This makes Caliban's betrayal of Prospero possibly more painful than the betrayal by Antonio.

I've also wondered as I worked with this play whether or not Prospero planned the events of the twelve years leading up to and including the play (excluding the plot by Caliban, which I don't think Prospero foresaw, being focused on other matters). I still don't really know how I feel about this. Dramatically, I think it's important for the audience to feel that Prospero has a change of heart when he says, "the rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance," in Act V. But the comments about the future in the final scene are frequent enough that I wonder. Alonso's wish that Miranda and Ferdinand were "living both in Naples, the king and queen there," and Gonzalo's wondering whether "Milan was thrust from Milan so that his issue should become kings of Naples" make me wonder if Prospero planned or at least shaped all of the events that led to the action of the play. He was, after all, able to make Miranda "more profit than other princes can," and shelter her from other people so that she could be truly amazed upon seeing Ferdinand. It's also worth noting, I think, that Ariel was instructed to place Ferdinand on the island alone. Why? If revenge was the goal, why separate him from the rest of the nobles? Prospero is most concerned when Ariel tells him Ferdinand jumped overboard - as soon as Ariel tells him that happened, the rhythm of the scene changes from long speeches to a short, choppy exchange, with Prospero asking whether it was near the shore, and then following up with, "but are they, Ariel, safe?" Ferdinand is obviously key to Prospero's plan. The plan, then seems to be much more than simple revenge - Ferdinand is a key element. Of course, for every textual argument to support the theory that the entire thing was planned, there's probably another counter-argument that can be made from the text. It's still something I'm exploring, but I find it very interesting.