Adapting The Tempest is a tall order for any dramatist. Shakespeare’s last ever solo theatrical work summons a perfect storm of elements from multiple theatrical conventions, comic and tragic combining in an occasionally unwieldy maelstrom. The mark of a good production is how well it’s able to calm and navigate these troubled waters, and Elizabeth Freestone’s latest adaptation for the RSC, despite the occasional stumble, certainly earns its sea legs.
For those unfamiliar, the action of The Tempest follows the aftermath of a magical storm created by the sorcerer and usurped Duke of Milan Prospero (played here by Alex Kingston). Shipwrecking the conspirators of her downfall on the shores of the island she and her daughter Miranda (Jessica Rhodes) now calls home, she orchestrates a plot to regain her dukedom, aided by wily spirit of the island, Ariel (Heledd Gwynn), and abetted by the vengeful Caliban (Tommy Sim’aan), who believes the island to be rightfully his.
Freestone sets this initial premise against a much more contemporary gathering cloud on our horizon - the impact of the climate crisis. From its programme full of interviews with climate activists and academics to its post apocalyptic set design (featuring recycled elements from past productions), the RSC makes an admirable effort to draw a parallel between the destructive consequences of Prospero’s plot and the present-day collateral damage of political power grabs.
Prospero and Miranda’s rusting, makeshift surroundings deliberately recall those of communities forced to adapt and survive after displacement following natural disasters. Prospero and Miranda, like the litter strewn about the stage in the first act, have been cast off as refuse, but they are resourceful in their adversity, as that refuse under Prospero’s auspices becomes instruments, ethereal robes, gnashing dogs. The incorporation of puppetry is a great choice here, grounding Prospero’s magic in very tangible vessels - a great oil-slicked, many-headed harpy is a particular highlight. Props too to the music team for making the play’s various musical interludes feel organic and contemporary (though occasionally some dialogue was lost in the sound mixing).
Alex Kingston is the North Star on which The Tempest’s compass is set. Her Prospero ebbs and flows between maternal tenderness and chilling authority (though it’s really in the second act that Kingston gets to flex those muscles fully). Her exchanges with Ariel are particularly powerful in this respect, especially since Heledd Gwynn brings a youthful, Peter Pan-like quality to the role that adds an interesting layer of complexity to their dynamic. It recalls a parent and adoptive child and provides an intriguing foil to Prospero’s relationship with Miranda - sceptical where she is trusting, disillusioned where she is oblivious. Their final sequence together is the most powerful in the show.
Gwynn marks herself out as a phenomenal talent throughout, flitting about the stage like a spider monkey and donning every conceivable hat from singer to musician to puppeteer. But her reactions to Prospero’s demands and their consequences are profoundly moving; Ariel seems devastated when their actions cause harm, reaching out in desperation to victims they cannot touch. When they see the full extent of Prospero’s wrath, they are horrified, but with Gwynn’s Ariel, it is the disorienting horror of seeing your parent for the first time as human, flawed and fallible.
Special mention too should go to Ishia Bennison, who plays well-meaning if naive Gonzalo with the tipsy goodwill of your favourite aunt at a wedding, Jamie Ballard’s hilariously devious comic timing as the conniving Antonio, and Simon Startin as Stephano, who brings a genuinely unnerving shade of darkness to a traditionally comic role. Tommy Sim’aan as Caliban marries a primal physicality with a very human bearing, a wise choice that resists the uncomfortable colonial implications of the character’s original monstrous framing.
However, there are a few respects in which the production doesn’t quite thread the needle. While Prospero is a refugee from Milan, she is certainly an enslaver of the island and its residents within the text, and with that in mind drawing a visual parallel between her and contemporary displaced communities doesn’t quite align with her power and the ruthlessness with which it is wielded.
There’s no denying Alex Kingston’s command of the stage, and the warmth she brings to the role is not unappreciated. I’m certainly not saying that Prospero should be unsympathetic, but the character is deeply flawed, manipulative and exploitative - and, beyond the realm of subtext, a patriarch and a coloniser. Kingston’s game mugging to our watching ‘spirits’ as her plans are set in motion, combined with the production’s general emphasis on comedy, endears us to Prospero, but in tandem dulls the more problematic aspects of her power. A production doesn’t necessarily need to Go There entirely to work, but in an adaptation where the climate crisis is such a prominent feature, it stands to reason that one should expect its intersections with race, class and capital to be more meaningfully examined. There are nods here and there (especially in the incorporation of other languages in the text), but one can’t help but feel there was more still to say.
Similarly, when the young Prince Ferdinand marries Miranda, the set’s backdrop of debris falls away to reveal a verdant forest, presumably a commentary on the rebirth mankind can achieve when acting out of love, rather than ambition. However, given that their entire romance has also been orchestrated as a part of Prospero’s plan to regain her dukedom, it is still a political power move, and not quite the emancipation from the folly of the powerful the play seems to think. When Prospero delivers his “our revels now are ended” speech, it is while looking the audience dead in the eye, a commentary on our transience set against the nature that will outlive us. But in context, it’s Prospero worried that Caliban and his conspirators will foil her plot at the last second - the two motivations rub up against each other without quite meshing (not the fault of Kingston, who delivers it with a raw emotion you can’t help but get swept up in).
I really do applaud the production in its efforts to have this conversation, and the work they’ve done to realise a vision of more sustainable theatre is commendable and I hope is emulated by future companies. As a piece, it reminds me quite a bit of its protagonist - capable of extraordinary power and command of its elements, but a little blinkered as to the implications of its vision. Despite its flaws, though, The Tempest’s compassionate, humanistic outlook of hope and redemption deserves your indulgence.
