The Tempest

Reviewed by Gray Palmer
Independent Shakespeare Company
Through September 4

RECOMMENDED

Good news. This Tempest belongs to the clowns. Not to say that the Independent Shakespeare Company’s production of The Tempest, currently at Griffith Park, is fixed in its shape at the beginning of the run (I attended the first Wednesday performance), because there is good reason to believe that the production is in motion and will shift as the performances continue.

The Tempest marvelously revolves a little system of poetic forms in orbit around its disturbing enchanter, Prospero: song, masque, narrative, praise, complaint, forensic indictment, elegy, persuasion to love, topographical description. And all these fluent planets with their passions are periodically stopped — time actually stops — or knocked off course by ludicrous triple-moons: the comic adventures of a fool, a drunken butler, and a monster (with the monster as the straight-man).

What Samuel Johnson observed about Shakespeare in 1765 is still true. “In his comick scenes, he seems to produce without labour, what no labour can improve.”

Comedy in Shakespeare so often misfires, but in ISC’s Tempest, a deep, delightful foolishness is immediately apparent.

Right away, director Matthew Earnest’s prologue includes a beguiling pratfall of styles. The Captain (Nathan Nonhof) seems to step out of an episode of The Love Boat in dress-whites. He marches around a bit, accompanied by a cool vibraphone groove. He hops onto a table-top. He extends his spyglass, but then immediately registers alarm. A storm is approaching. The table-top is revealed to have a trap-door — through which a crew of mariners emerges on deck (and they keep coming in a duplicating chain, clown-car fashion).

In the chaos of braving the storm — a dance of yellow slickers criss-crossing against the movements of red-robed passengers — despite the agitation, we hear enough of the dialogue to quickly identify the vicious and the virtuous.

When good Gonzalo (the very fine Lester Purry) cries out, “We split! We split!” that ingenious table breaks apart and its fragments are carried to left and right by the elements. At that moment the magician Prospero (Thom Rivera) and his daughter Miranda (Erika Soto) are stepping through the eye of the storm as in a cinematic dissolve, to arrive at center stage in their peaceful island cell. We’re off to a good start.

And all of the physical magic of the show is provided in this same kitchen table-top manner, by enlisting the services of company members who aid as familiars in levitation of persons and objects, produce discoveries, dances, and not least, perform the very good music composed and arranged by Chris Porter. (It is a virtue of ISC production that ensemble members also possess musical skill.)

Ariel (the irreplacable Kalean Ung) appears as a fairy aviatrix (mad costumes throughout by William Bezek), with aviator cap, jodhpurs and boots, and a short set of feathery white wings. One of the very successful passages in Thom Rivera’s performance of Prospero comes early in his negotiations with her.

Ariel, after commanding the illusion of shipwreck, reminds Prospero of his part in the contract between them. It is almost time for her to be set free. At this, Prospero flies into a rage. Ung’s reaction of terror here is piercing and moving. Her fear of offending the master seems to urge Prospero on to more rage, even as she begs indulgence and promises to carry out his further commands. Rivera is perfect in this scene.

He is a strange man of power, Prospero, a man with iron in his spirit, an ambiguous, somewhat distant figure, admirable, gifted, and perhaps more to be feared than liked.

(It must be said that Rivera’s portrait of Prospero is a work in progress. Another actor began rehearsal in the role but was released after a dispute with the director. That gave Rivera, brave man, the benefit of only two weeks of rehearsal. He is, in fact, a Shakespeare veteran. It is possible to adequately “mark” a role without quite occupying all its sections, though Rivera is doing much better than that. However, we can look forward to a more complete, personal statement as the run continues. I plan on returning.)

Briefly, the two narratives of the King of Naples with his courtiers, and that of the young lovers are both played very well by all.

But in this Tempest, with the low characters Trinculo (Lorenzo Gonzalez), Stephano (David Melville) and Caliban (Sean Pritchett), we enter the realm of the theatrical sublime. It doesn’t get much better than this. When Lorenzo Gonzalez arrives onstage as Trinculo, it’s a fool’s dance, engendering immediate laughter. He walks on — we begin to laugh. Terrified of lightning and thunder, he seeks shelter under Caliban’s smelly cloak — laughter squared. Drunken Stephano enters — laughter cubed. And so with that entire golden narrative thread… a cracked mirror of the murderous passions of the courtiers.

Old Zoo at Griffith Park, near the Merry-Go-Round; Wed.-Sun. 7 pm. Through September 4. (818) 710-6306, iscla.org. Running time: two hours and 45 minutes with intermission.