VINES OF VIRTUE: Tempestuous explorations. |
The near-uninhabited spirit island of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, at the Theater at Monmouth, is evoked with a set swathed in white. Pale sheets hang in folds alongside nautical ropes as the backdrop, are twisted about a fallen mast, and are blanketed over steps and alcoves. This is a very susceptible white. Because it both entwines the ship’s rigging and stretches out horizon-like, it seems to be a substance at once of humans and of the elements. Thanks to fine shifts in lighting — pale pinks, deep-sea blues — we see, in the sheets, stirrings now of sails, now of sky, now of sea. And in the white’s expectant blankness, there’s ample room for both suggestion and projection: what do the play’s assorted humans see in the island? A paradise? A wilderness? Spirits and devils? Something to conquer and claim? Monmouth’s white-wrapped stage elegantly reveals the island as both a medium for illusion and a tabula rasa by which to measure the natures of the humans who find themselves marooned there, in director Jeri Pitcher’s rich and loving production.This island straddling the natural and the supernatural is under the command of Prospero (Bill Van Horn). Usurped by his brother from his rule over the people of Milan, he has taken up books, a cloak, and a staff with which to rule the spirits here. His particular servants are the airy sprite Ariel (the effervescent Victoria Caciopoli) and the crude, earthy creature Caliban (Adam Peña). His only human company is his daughter, Miranda (an endearing Tracie Merrill), who knows no man but her father. A storm strands an entourage that includes Prospero’s brother Antonio (Mark S. Cartier) along with the Queen (Janis Stevens), her son Ferdinand (Jacob Troy), and several other nobles and drunkards. Suddenly landed with human creatures, the island of spirits is thus rife for an exploration of exactly what is “human.”
As the old ruler playing at magic in this realm, there’s no actor around better suited for the role than Van Horn. His Prospero conveys both a magnificent scope of human experience — we see him enraged at treachery, giddy at young love, intoxicated with his power, and humbled by human affections — and a weighty self-awareness. These play strikingly against the bright blitheness of Caciopoli’s nimble Ariel. Dressed in iridescent forest colors, her lightness of foot and speech nevertheless pull her toward the air, as if she’s just barely tethered to the earth. Her foil, the half-breed Caliban, is pale and hissing in the person of Peña. He snarls his words where Ariel makes hers into unearthly music accompanied by airy, playful percussion that seems to come from everywhere at once. Other spirits of the isle seem at once everywhere and nowhere when they emerge, made to seem startlingly transparent by clever white body suits and gauzed masks.
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Topics:
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