This past Thursday, a new production of one of Shakespeare’s later works, The Tempest premiered in Tansill Theater. Helmed by esteemed director Bryan Jennings, students performed this classic play throughout the weekend with sold-out, or almost sold-out seats at every performance.
The production, with fantastic art direction and set decoration from Tim Gobieweski, was lavish, featuring large-scale set pieces with a mast, trees and a realistic representation of a jungle island.
The costume design, from Sabrina Notarfrancisco, is first rate. The African costume designs had a similar beauty and pleasure to the costumes seen in Julie Taymor’s exquisite design in the Broadway phenomenon The Lion King.
The lighting design is also remarkable, as it brings all the beauties of this show together.
The cast too, brings an array of energy and talent to their performances. Jennings does fine work mining the large amounts of talent of cast members.
Eric DelGizzo, as the ambiguous Prospero, speaks Shakespeare very naturally, almost in the fashion of Laurence Olivier. Madeleine Baldwin plays a very comical, energetic performance as Stephano, and Pete Konowski turns in a unique, creative performance in another “language” (English or Spanish or Swahili or Spanglish) as the slave Caliban.
The choice of the play is what I happen to disagree with, although I think that this production team was spectacular and did a phenomenal job with what they had.
As one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, The Tempest is also one of his most ambiguous in genre and comprehension. Is it a comedy, a tragedy, a late romance, a tragicomedy, or what?
Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good tragicomedy (August: Osage County is the best show I’ve seen in years), but for some reason, the way this show was presented just did not really work. Everyone definitely gave it their all, and succeeded, but the choice of material could have been better.
Bryan Jennings is a phenomenal director, and the cast is universally excellent. But like last year’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, I think the show might have trouble resonating with a college audience. At times, I found myself confused with the plot and did not really understand what was going on, and I’ve read almost every Shakespeare play out there.
In a nutshell: I love the production, I hate the play. I would recommend it, however. It should definitely satisfy the theater-going population here at Conn, and is certainly worth a watch.
On a Connecticut College Camel Rating Scale, out of a possible four, I’m going to give The Tempest 3 Camels.
I like this. Finally a review in the Voice that actually reviews.