The Tempest- review

 The Tempest by William Shakespeare is the story of an over thrown Duke of Milan (Prospero), who isolates himself on an island and crashes a ship in order to make his daughter (Miranda) noble again. The stage was thrusting and that created a better connection with the audience. It provided effectively a world for the play to exist, since the setting was a deserted island and the props were minimal. It was contemporary to the play however there was an element of the setting, which was basically a large cube at the back of the stage, which was sometimes visible (transparent) and other times not. This was used in some cases, as I kind of gateway between reality and imagination (for example, the spirit that only Prospero saw always entered through the cube), but it was also used to enact a situation that was happening at the same time as the main action. The lighting was used very effectively, I could not see the source of illumination and they played a very important role in the play. It was used to represent time passing and created very dark moments every time there were soliloquies and when Prospero was talking to Ariel. When the mood was more relaxed and there were comic moments, the lighting was brighter and not as intense as in dramatic scenes. Most sound is recorded (the thunder in the storm, for example) and is mainly used for the dramatic moments, to accumulate tension. It is mainly naturalistic, but in abstract moments, such as when Ariel appears with wings and falls from the ceiling to scare the nobles (my acid-test scene), weird and heavy noises are heard. The costumes are contemporary to our time and Shakespearian time, and they do tell some things about the social order of the people that crashed on the island. Prospero and his daughter have obviously ripped but at the same time, quite formal clothes from living in the island for so long; the noblemen that crashed have suits on; the slaves have barely any clothes besides pieces of cloth torn apart. Being this play by the Royal Shakespeare Company, the performances were all quite good. Each actor portrayed effectively each character and was able to make a believable performance. However, the ensemble as a whole seemed to be not working fully and as part of the audience I felt that it could have been better if only the ensemble would have had more chemistry.