THE TEMPEST. To 20 November.
London
THE TEMPEST
by William Shakespeare
The Hobbs Factory 122 Gloucester Avenue To 20 November 2005
Runs 2hr 20min One interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 20 November
Final fling for factory as theatre brings intriguing moments in an unlikely environment.
I hope when the Hobbs Factory made shoes it provided more warmth for its workers than was available on the final freezing night of Shakespeare’s Caribbean story. Nor does the old industrial environment suggest the luxuriant nature the script mentions. Still, we had been advised to wrap up warm, and site-specific promenades demand to be taken on their own terms.
It’s an evening spent sitting on stacked beer-crates, watching the shipwrecked passengers from the low, cramped vantage-point of camping-stools, or, finally luxuriating, during Prospero’s reconciliation and renunciation scene, in the comparative warmth of fabric-seating under soft red lighting.
A sexy environment even, given director Emma Serlin’s programme-note re-setting the play in a world of pimps, strippers and pole-dancers. But the sex industry’s as long-gone as the real-life cobblers (unsurprising given the temperature) and this constructed background excuses the factory location rather than illuminating the play.
It’s an evening, too, spent travelling the factory, finding new spaces and new dimensions to ones already visited. This works beautifully for Miranda and Ferdinand’s first meeting, in adjoining offices, seeing each other through glass panels as Prospero runs between the rooms. Elsewhere, there are sand-covered floors, a bed for Prospero to place the daughter in whom he induces sleep (giving a gentler than usual impression of this moment) and metallic boxes in which actors crouch, creating the opening tempest with impressively noisy confusion.
Yet Serlin’s modern scheme means Trinculo can’t realistically discover the angry Caliban as a fish, so their meeting is played with new, sometimes slack, dialogue. Doubling means the villainous Sebastian and Antonio disappear in the final scene, depriving Miranda’s ‘Brave new world’ of its irony.
Performances are uneven, with some oddly-accentuated lines. Yet Paul Thompson makes Caliban’s anger and lunge towards Miranda fit the director’s back-story scenario, while Richard Crawley overcomes being barely half as old as Gonzalo should be by presenting a good-willed character, explaining Prospero’s trust in him. Best are Poppy Roe’s Miranda, innocent without being naïve, and Paul Goodwin’s strong Prospero, handling the verse with intelligence and flexibility while showing a watchful mastery based on judgment and experience.
Prospero: Paul Goodwin
Miranda: Poppy Roe
Ariel: Marina Koem
Caliban/Sebastian: Paul Thompson
Ferdinand/Antonio: Staten Eliot
Gonzalo/Trinculo: Richard Crawley
Alonso/Stefano: Simon Connolly
Ushers: Nicola Moss, Chloe Whimple
Director: Emma Serlin
Designer: takis
Lighting: Jonathan Samuels
Sound: Sam Lerner
Composer: James Jones
Assistant director: William Drew
Assistant designer: Bridget Stacey
Assistant lighting: Alex Stone
2005-11-23 00:02:36