Review: Prospero's Project Pleases in Renaissance Now's "The Tempest"

The Tempest

Written by William Shakespeare

Adapted and directed by Kathy Curtiss

Presented by Renaissance Now Theatre & Film at Chain Theatre

312 West 36 Street, Floor 3 & 4, Manhattan, NYC

July 2-5, 2025

Carter McEwan, (Mariner), Ethan Freestone (Trinculo), Grace Fillmore (Boatswain), Seth Johnson (Ferdinand). Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
The Tempest is one of William Shakespeare's plays most overtly concerned with art and its presentation, making it, in a metatheatrical sense, a particularly apt choice for Renaissance Now Theatre & Film's third season of Shakespearean plays adapted with additions of dialogue in contemporary prose, or "now speak," to highlight themes relevant to contemporary audiences. There exists a long tradition of interpreting sorcerer Prospero's magical "art" as an analogue for theater due to his managing of plot and spectacle throughout The Tempest, and while the "now speak" of this Tempest, courtesy of director and Renaissance Now Artistic Director Kathy Curtiss, does not alter the former, its engagement with the latter yields part of the production's own magic. And for those looking for even more summer Shakespeare, Renaissance Now is presenting The Tempest in repertory with a Philadelphia-set modern-dress adaptation of Measure for Measure.
Sasha Haydn, Sonja Hugo, Marvin Payne, Seth Johnson. Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
For those unfamiliar, the play opens with the titular storm, created by Prospero (Marvin Payne) through his magic, ensnaring and seemingly sinking a ship passing by the island upon which he has lived in exile with his daughter, Miranda (Sonja Hugo), for more than a decade, since she was a young child. The ship carries, among others, Prospero's brother, Antonio (Houston Baker), who usurped Propsero's office as the Duke of Milan and precipitated his flight from Naples, which ended on an island peopled only by an Algerian witch named Sycorax and her son, Caliban (Oliver Estrada Brown). Also aboard the ship are Alonso (Joel Applegate), the King of Naples, and his son and heir, Ferdinand (Seth Johnson), and Prospero takes advantage of the wreck's proximity to the island to enact a plan that resembles a revenge plot but with forgiveness as its ultimate aim. Prospero is aided in conjuring the storm and his other endeavors by a spirit, Ariel (Sasha Hayden), who has been under his control since he freed her from imprisonment by the now-deceased Sycorax–and should Prospero's plan succeed, he has promised, he will grant her her freedom entirely.
Sasha Haydn as Ariel, Carter McEwan as Stephano, Oliver Estrada Brown as Caliban, Ethan Freestone as Trinculo. Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
Ariel observes the effects of the tempest–effectively evoked not only through the light and sound design but also by grouping the shipboard character into a tight, swaying cluster–one of several times that the production uses offstage areas for a character to observe others while remaining unseen, which are significant moments in a play partly about controlling what people see and hear, concerns that are currently of pressing relevance. The play's "now speak" passages often underscore important thematic moments, and one early example points to another urgent contemporary issue when Miranda asks disbelievingly whether "there [are] those in power who do not value knowledge" and Prospero notes that "it doesn’t do well to disagree with" such people. Later, to take another example, Ferdinand and Miranda discuss whether what is in the heart matches what is in the face echoes the themes of Othering connected to the "monster" Caliban. The production also enhances its feeling of vitality by having the cast frequently deliver passages that express their thought process but might not be marked as asides directly to the audience, as well as by providing illustrative dumb shows during passages of reported action, including during Prospero's notoriously lengthy exposition early in the play (even the play itself jokes about its potential to bore listeners).
Kolby Jenkins (Gonzalo), Houston Baker (Antonio), Joel Applegate (Alonso). Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
The show's set, designed by Rychard Curtiss, features netting and fur and fabric and stone, a rough, natural feel for an island of "rough magic." Netting also appears in Antonio's hands at one point, as well as in Miranda's and Prospero's costumes, serving as a visual metaphor for the plots and counterplots that dominate the play world's past and present. The costuming, designed by Jenny Thornton, creates visual affinities among characters: most of the Neapolitans wear variations of Renaissance dress; Prospero and Miranda both sport some of the aforementioned netting and seashells (Miranda's costume changes once she is engaged to someone from Naples); and the drunken servants and would-be rebels Stephano (Carter McEwan) and Trinculo (Ethan Freestone) both bear some fringe. Ariel and her fellow spirits (Grace Fillmore and Abigail Desyr) also share a colorful, slightly distressed look, and it is worth noting that the production retains not only these additional spirits, which do not always appear in contemporary stagings, but also the entire scene of the embedded nuptial masque, which contemporary directors nearly always heavily cut or excise entirely.
Grace Fillmore (Iris,) Abigail Desyr (Juno), Sasha Haydn (Ariel). Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
The play's dialogue concerning Caliban allows for a wide range of interpretations of his appearance, and here, his scaly, horned hands and forehead, along with a kind of cowl with a long piece in the rear that evokes a tail, call to mind a reptile–or perhaps even, more powerfully, a dragon. The silhouette of his forehead appliance also hints at a crown, fitting for a character who was "first was mine own king" before Prospero usurped his dominion over the island. Estrada Brown plays this "monster" with movement that is unusual but also graceful and athletic, and his youth interestingly colors how we see his rebelliousness and quick adoption of Stephano and Trinculo as his new masters. The nobleman Gonzalo (Kolby Jenkins) is also cast younger than usual, and, in still another fresh-feeling choice, Hayden's Ariel evinces a lot of enjoyment in both carrying out and recounting the magical tasks assigned her by Prospero. Hugo invests Miranda with a lively vivacity, and she and Payne, who makes for a consistently compelling Prospero, quickly establish a warm and easy dynamic between Miranda and her father. The dynamic between Hugo and Johnson as Miranda and Ferdinand also achieves an engaging naturalism and immediacy, as when they inject their courtship with some relatable nervousness and awkwardness. Baker gives Antonio a sharp-edged ambition that dissolves into perceptible unease at the sight of the brother whom he betrayed, and Freestone and McEwan complement one another very well as a comic duo, with Freestone hewing closer to the jester or fool suggested by his particolored epaulettes and McEwan nicely underplaying Stephano's drunkenness, as in his cheerful acceptance of stumbling upon what he believes to be a four-legged, two-mouthed monster. It is possible, and maybe even tempting, given our current moment, to lean into the potential darkness in The Tempest, but Renaissance Now's production, while not sidestepping the issues that the play raises, opts to emphasize its understanding, possibility, and joy, including, at its conclusion, by removing Prospero's remark in the original text that "[e]very third thought shall be my grave" once he returns to Milan and adding for Caliban a little moment of triumph and future potential. Realizing its own potential, Renaissance Now's The Tempest provides an excellent island escape this summer.

-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: "How To Eat an Orange" Cuts into the Life of an Argentine Artist and Activist

Image
How To Eat an Orange Written by Catherine Filloux Based on the writing of Claudia Bernardi Directed by Elena Araoz Presented by La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club at The Downstairs at La MaMa 66 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYC May 30-June 16, 2024 Paula Pizzi. Photo by Steven Pisano How To Eat an Orange , making its world premiere at La MaMa, does in fact include a real orange as a prop, and its multifarious symbolizations–evoking at different points cultural specificity, family history, matriarchal inheritance, and even a skull–are representative of the play's boundary-blurring, non-linear presentation of memory. The memories in question belong to visual artist, educator, and activist Claudia Bernardi , who lived through several years of her native Argentina's military junta, which held power from 1976 to 1983, before departing her country and eventually settling in the United States. How To Eat an Orange , from Catherine Filloux, a French Algerian American award-winning playwright,...
Read more

Review: The Immersive "American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams" Takes Audiences on a Marvelously Crafted Journey

Image
American Blues: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams Written by Tennessee Williams Directed by Jim Niesen Presented by the Irondale Ensemble Project at The Space at Irondale 85 South Oxford St., Brooklyn, NYC October 27-November 26, 2023 Shadenia Savid in Moony's Kids Don't Cry . Photo by Natasha Rotondaro In 1948, Tennessee Williams published American Blues , a collection of five one-act plays, and a remarkable new production of this collection by Brooklyn's Irondale shows that these works have lost none of their power to both entertain and challenge audiences in the intervening three-quarters of a century. Comprising plays written in the decade between 1936 and 1946 - Moony's Kids Don't Cry (1936); The Dark Room (1939); The Case of the Crushed Petunias (1941); The Long Stay Cut Short, or, the Unsatisfactory Supper (1946); and Ten Blocks on the Camino Real (1946) - American Blues represents the second part of Irondale's American Century, the first install...
Read more

Review: From Child Pose to Stand(ing) Up: "Yoga with Jillian" and "Penguin in Your Ear" at the Women in Theatre Festival

Image
Yoga with Jillian Written by Lia Romeo Directed by Andrew W. Smith Presented by Project Y Theatre and Richard Jordan Productions in association with The Pleasance June 2-17, 2023 Penguin in Your Ear Written and performed by Eliza Bent Directed by Jess Barbagallo June 10, 2023 Part of the Women in Theatre Festival , presented by Project Y Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres Michole Biancosino. Photo courtesy of Project Y Theatre This June, Project Y Theatre Company presents the eighth annual installment of its Women in Theatre Festival (WIT), which showcases new work by women and maintains "more than 50% female representation of all artists involved." This year, the festival includes a lobby installation project, titled In the Betweens , from scenic designer Chen-Wei Liao, through which audience members pass on their way into the theater proper. One first chooses first between "light" and "dark" rooms and then moves into "the gardens" before re...
Read more