I’ll tell you precisely when I knew that the Commonwealth Shakespeare Festival’s The Tempest was going to be something special. It wasn’t right away, though Clint Ramos and Jeffrey Petersen’s setting was promising enough upon arrival in the park. We encountered a low sandbox of a playing area backed up by the shadows of Boston Common’s gentle foliage, and between them a backdrop of 20’ long ropes, like the doorway of a fortune teller’s house. A pile of rubble was covered by tarps, so you got the idea, handy “sails” and ropes for the storm to come.
After a Grotowski-like group breathing incantation, which I could’ve done without, came the titular typhoon accompanied by elaborate lights (by Eric Southern and Maximo Grano De Oro) and superb sound effects (by David Reiffel, who also composed lovely original music). Fine chaos orchestrated by director Steven Maler and choreographer Levi Philip Marsman, but on the whole, fairly routine as far as two-planks-and-a-passion theater goes.
When it came time for the exiled ex-duke Prospero (John Douglas Thompson) to explain his backstory to daughter Miranda (Nora Eschenheimer), my heart sank as it usually does at the prospect of all that traditionally unmodulated gab. But it suddenly became clear that this confrontation would be no mere exposition fest.
This Prospero is truly wracked by his own tale of being robbed of his dukedom by his faithless brother and the agonies that followed. It matters to him, truly matters, that Miranda understand and empathize with how badly he’d been treated. And for her part, Eschenheimer is far from the usual simpering naїf, but a young woman of strength and vitality, above all concerned about the effect of all that pent-up bile and hate on the father she adores.
In short, a tedious two-person colloquy becomes an exciting one-act play ushering in the production’s overarching spine, the redemption of a hardened heart—an idea I’ve not seen explored to this extent in any Tempest I’ve previously encountered.
The scenes with the marooned nobility and low comics have been severely trimmed (the brisk, intermissionless event ends short of two hours). But I was hard-pressed to figure out what was gone, because director Maler uses the scenes that remain to fully exploit those characters’ purpose: namely, to be toyed with by Prospero like a cat playing with a mouse. Posing no possible threat to the omnipotent sorcerer, they are there to be scourged and humiliated and punished and so they are… that is, until Miranda and her newfound beloved Ferdinand (Michael Underhill, a hero anyone would happily follow) teach the old magician the power of love and restore his humanity.
In this telling, “I’ll drown my book” means more than Prospero’s giving up his rough magic. It’s also a formal renouncing of his vengeance, and accepting his place as one more normal member of the human race. As staged here, his reconciliations with the others are incredibly poignant; he even seeks the pardon of Caliban—brilliantly incarnated by Nael Nacer as a head-to-toe tattooed skinhead—in an unexpected moment of grace that, I must confess, brought a tear to this old eye.
For all his brilliant work in New York and around the country (if you missed his Emperor Jones, oh my God, I’m so sorry for you), and his sterling contribution to HBO’s Mare of Easttown, Thompson is far less well known than by all rights he ought to be. What’s so brilliant here is the combination of muscular acting with precise, even delicate handling of the verse that puts you on the edge of your seat waiting for how he’ll surprise you next. His Prospero can fall apart emotionally in the middle of a line, and as Thompson times it, it feels like just a brief caesura in the poetic flow. What he does—it’s just remarkable.
At the same time there’s not a weak performance in the bunch, though I especially admired Eschenheimer, Nacer, and Fred Sullivan, Jr.’s Stephano, the love child of Foster Brooks and the hammy old cartoon character Snagglepuss who used to announce “Exit, stage left.” I was unsure at first about the Ariel of Boston Ballet principal dancer John Lam, whose tours jetés and pirouettes looked to take him out of the play somewhat; but once I understood that Ariel is as much imprisoned by enchantment as Prospero himself, his movement took on true character reality for me rather than merely reflecting a performer’s self-expression. Anyway, Lam adds as much exciting physicality as the trio of female spirits (Ekemini Ekpo, Jessica Golden, Marta Rymer) contributes vocal finesse.
In its economy, pace, and its lucid presentation of an emotionally rich journey, this is the best production of The Tempest that I have ever seen, one of those where you go, “Well, I never have to see [insert title] again, because nothing will top this.”
And it confirms John Douglas Thompson as one of those actors whose every appearance is worth seeking out. If in future he chooses to offer us his Richard III, Prof. Harold Hill, or even Max Bialystock—I’m in.
The Tempest opened July 28, 2021, at the Parkman Bandstand/Boston Common (Boston, MA) and runs through August 8. Tickets and information: commshakes.org
