Donnellan & Ormerod’s Tempest is an assured, convincing piece of
stagecraft. Using a simple three door stage and occasional projections, they recount Shakespeare’s last play with fluency. There’s many details to savour.
The five male Ariels (only 5?) torment the shipwrecked visitors with watering
cans. Rather than carrying logs, Ferdinand carries an Ariel. When Alonso,
Sebastian and Antonio are accused by Ariel, the projection turns the stage into
a Soviet show trial. And the marriage ceremony becomes a paean to kitsch Soviet
art, as sickle-wielding farmers line-dance across the stage.
However, in a sense the final two images hint at this
production’s Achilles Heel. Cheek by Jowl is working with their sister Russian
theatre company. Hence the director and designer’s decision to include various
signifiers in their staging which announce a Russian influence, as above. We
also get Stefano and Trinculo as materialist oligarchs, hellbent on shopping to
oblivion. But the overall impact of these allusions is bitty. It’s unclear what
exactly Donnellan is seeking to say about Russian society, or why he is
matching this “Russianness” onto The Tempest. (One wonders what Pelevin would
have to say.) Is there a deeper theme? Or is it just skilful appropriation of
local imagery which goes hand-in-glove with working with a Russian company?
This question felt all the more curious watching the show in
Latin America. The role of The Tempest in Latin American culture is
well-documented. You’ll meet plenty of people called Ariel here (including the
man who watches the cars on our street for pennies). There’s no reason for
Donnellan’s staging to refer to this, (it only happens to be on tour here), but
what’s apparent watching the play is the extent to which the writer was aware
of and infiltrating his text with the geo-political developments of his day. On
one level The Tempest can be seen a magical fairytale. But on another it’s a
play which is addressing concrete, tangible issues. Donnellan’s use of
‘Russian’ imagery suggests an awareness of the way that the play maps onto a
more discursive reading, but ultimately, to this observer at least, that
interpretation failed to come through with any clarity.
Instead, the primacy of the magical fairy tale wins through.
With regard to this, the director’s handling is deft. The advantages of having
worked with Shakespeare’s texts all your working life, and the confidence this
gives, is evident. Donnellan teases his audience like a sixth spritely Ariel,
interrupting the action, setting up the denoument, in control at every moment.
It makes for an enjoyable evening and a notable demonstration of the theatrical
benefits of a director and their designer (Nick Ormerod) working as a unit, as
they have done for thirty years.
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Nb
This is the third Cheek by Jowl Shakespeare I’ve seen (also
one Webster). The first, Othello, was I believe, their first ever production,
which toured to my school and I watched in the “drama barn” as a teenager. Ten
years later, mas o menos, I saw Measure for Measure in the Sala Anglo, and went
out for drinks with the cast in the Lobizon afterwards. It’s also worth noting
that that Cheek By Jowl have had a unlikely but profound impact on my life, not
for artistic reasons, but because a friend of mine once worked for them in their
Kennington office. Where, one day, a fax arrived asking if the company knew of
any young directors who might be interested in coming to work for a year in a place called Montevideo.
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