Then, all of a sudden, came the realisation that a pendulum governs “the hermeneutics of the tempest“, swinging the plot in the whereabouts of the comedy or the tragedy, determined by where the plot decides to swing away. Not any pendulum in this choice, yet the one Foucault intended, to manifest Earth has a motus of its own.
Colombian director Omar Porras` choice for his mise en scène “gravitates“ – this must be the verb to be used, around the status of the Earth. Some dose of nostalgia of a golden age edges into yearning in La Tempête ou la voix du vent, not as much as it would if the swinging were to be somber or dark, though. In his manifestation of the disquieting state of the planet, he is gentle.
The result is a full rounded artistic laboratoire to delve into the essence of the “tempest“ which is indeed not a climatic event, yet a state, an emotion of the earth; in the Amerindian culture of the kogis, in Colombia, the shikwa is the invisible cord wrapping up the earth, connecting it with the sun and the rest of the universe, and granting its constant rotation.
Maintaining this balance is no longer the issue at stake, it is more of an earthquake of a sort, un craquement – that is now threatening the balance. Indeed, a tempest. As such, the plot gives a voice to the earth, to express this sentiment, and to give a chance of redemption to mankind for what has been done to the planet and the environment.
`Caliban! Thou earth, thou! Speak.`
This line cracks this interpretation to the core, yet not in a manifest way. The ecological meaning of the line is imaginative and kind, following the plot in the land of comedy aided by fragments of diverse creative devices of the visual theatre: masks, puppets, lights, music.
In the directors` intentions, the shipwrecked are confronted with a “new world“, yet the major themes of forgiveness, justice, freedom manifest in segments interlacing respectively with the beauty of “humanity“, the uselessness of power, and the clumsiness of violence.
Way before the hermeneutics, are the actors, though, entering the stage from the hall, a happy crew, at the TKM – Qui veut dire quoi? Théâtre Kléber–Mèleau.
A placid elderly storyteller more than a tyrannical wizard, Prospero lulls Miranda asleep with star-dust while summoning a Puck-like Ariel whose weapon is a musical chuckle, more than thunder.
Exotic flowers and a surreal vegetation suggest the island is more of a forest – a green space where some would venture to face change, or redemption; and “the-sleep-per-chance-to-dream“ backdrop is indeed ventured aloud by the entering parade, swinging the pendulum in the adjacency of A Midsummer Night`s Dream.
Ferdinand is a sweet goofball who cannot see the surrounding puppet creatures, while Caliban does and he would not mind reign over them, now that he knows the language of domination, but is powerlessly taken for a fish and spoken to in Portuguese by Stefano and Trinculo. Mirrored elsewhere, the Neapolitan court plots without shame chased by an invisible swarm of buzzing insects.
Change indeed happens, in Gonzalo`s voice, wishing a republic with no magistrates, no contracts, no masters, no matrimonies and a whole producing Nature: `We have been wandering in a maze!`. All is forgiven, free, human.
Shakespearean Tales 