The Tempest 

Review by Neal Weaver 
The Porters of Hellsgate 
Through June 3 

It tends to raise a red flag when the management of a production thinks it’s necessary to include a synopsis of the play in the program, implying the audience won’t understand it without help. This suggests, among other things, that the director has failed to quite do his job in articulating the action. (Not all program notes are bad: If they serve to point out or clarify historical, national, or social issues, they can be extremely helpful.) Things get particularly difficult if the action we see on the stage doesn’t correspond with what we’re being told.

Here, for instance, the synopsis tells us, “A magical banquet appears before the lords. As they prepare to eat, they are reprimanded by Ariel.” What we see is Ariel, suspended on high, tossing down a varicolored table cloth, which the lords spread out. There is no banquet, and therefore no preparations for eating. And later, at the end of the play, when the magic proceedings have ended, Prospero says, “I’ll break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And deeper than did ever plummet sound, I’ll drown my book.” He does neither, though the Bard provides a cue for it in the first line of the epilogue.

How can we trust the words of the playwright if the action doesn’t match them?

Leon Russom is a venerable, credible and sometimes fierce Prospero, but he doesn’t get a lot of help from director Alex Parker, who seems to go in for speed, sound and fury rather than clarity, subtlety and nuance. The lyricism and sweetness of the young lovers, Miranda (Kita J. Grayson) and Ferdinand (Will Block) are sacrificed to the decision to play them as broadly comic.

Parker also chooses to have Ariel played by an aerialist (Christine Sage), which works like gang-busters at first: When she hovers above the chaotic ship-wreck scene, she is like an avenging angel, or the Winged Victory of Samothrace. This is the first Ariel I have seen who seemed really dangerous. But as the play progresses, she’s stuck up there, entwined in her silks and unable to connect with others or participate directly in the action.

There are some solid performances and the production is not without charm, but in the end it doesn’t show us anything about the play that we didn’t know already.

The Whitmore-Lindley Theatre Center, 11006 Magnolia Boulevard, North Hollywood. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. PortersTempest.brownpapertickets.com or 818-325-2055818-325-2055.  Running time: two hours and 20 minutes with one 15-minute intermission.