The Tempest – Shakespearean Tales

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.

Nothing less than a precious cameo, becoming `a natural born Shakespearian actor` at the height of his career. `The Tempest`, last on stage 2019, now in streaming on the Elfo-Puccini website, is a gracious window on a wise, poetic soul, well-informed about himself, and his life as a performer. A one-man show tailor-made for Ferdinando Bruni — founder member of storied Teatro dell’Elfo, from the co-authorship pen of Francesco Frongia. Pouring out of an intimate recounting, this short, yet intense version of `the last tale`, leans on specific predilections as a theatrical concerto, in and about the original plot, to act as an aesthetic statement gem, a gift from an actor to his audience as a tribute to life.

In little more than an hour, alone on stage, with just a couple of extra `island servants`, all the characters parade as a fictional court by the hands of Prospero the wizard-master-father-player. Shipwreck discloses the whimsical `pirate of destinies`, — in a torn stovepipe hat, brown Elizabethan collar, dark frayed coat-gown, diverting his and his daughter’s life on a white sand island — memories of old shores popping out from a distant past, smooth branches scaffolding light drapes. White sand canvases, where animated figures come to life on stage through different voices, accents, and a perfect `soundtrack` — as if inherent part of the dramaturgical `arrangement`.

Books surround a wooden stage-on-the-stage — those same books whose main sin was to have diverted attention from power, thus easing a brother takeover. On this set-in-the-set, Miranda is cuddled as a doll, before turning into an oneiric figure, Japanese Bunraku-like marionette, made up assembling recovered materials. Similar semblance is reserved for Ferdinando, while engaged into the capricious ordeal, before the final blessings. Same goes for the skull masked Alonso-Gonzago and Antonio-Sebastiano pairs, in a carousel of intrigues directed on stage as in a Días de los muertos setting — an anticipation of the final forgiveness which is here son of the fear of death.

Glove puppets are instead reserved both for Ariel — or the `aerial Genius`, who is the guardian of life itself in Prospero’s magic, here conceived as an all white transparent fabric plot and a tiny head in a Pulcinella-like hat, and his opposite, the deformed, half-human, devilish Caliban, an alluring Mamuthones mask, changing dimensions depending on his presence in each line. Therefore, big in the encounter with Stefàno and Trincùlo, whose hilarious Salentinian accent brings about some show-into-the-show made of a liquor-induced obscene score. Gracious, on the other hand, is the heart-rending closure, whilst the old man who has let his `spirit` and his magic go, thanks his public for understanding.

`Now my charms are all o’erthrown and what strength I have mine own`

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