Shipwreck

Hedgerow's Tempest conceit dissipates into a hodgepodge of pragmatic, disjointed decisions.

by Mark Cofta

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Published: May 16, 2007

GIMME SHELTER: Robert Lanchester and Miriam Ani in Hedgerow Theatre's The Tempest. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Directors must arrive at Shakespeare with some concept: nothing wacky or tacky, necessarily, just a vision that unifies and guides the play.

Hedgerow Theatre artistic director Penelope Reed shows up with a workable idea introduced in her curtain speech, inviting us to imagine a Caribbean island. Actors emerge in modern beachwear through the audience, as if conjured to festively create The Tempest on the spot � but it soon dissipates into a hodgepodge of pragmatic, disjointed decisions.

Guest actor Robert Lanchester brings appropriate gravity and warmth to Prospero, the exiled duke raising daughter Miranda (poised high school student Lauren Thomas) on an island with the forced help of magical Ariel (sprightly Miriam Ani) and beastly Caliban (roaring Keon Mohajeri). Prospero conjures a storm to shipwreck the King of Naples (stentorian Richard Hamilton Brown) and his party, which includes Prospero's usurping brother Antonio (Sly McKeever), and through a series of adventures teaches them, and us, some lessons.

In a play that's so much about illusions leading us to larger truths � in other words, theater � it's frustrating that these earnest perform ances are presented so haphazardly. Ani brings great energy and poise to Ariel, for example, but her punky metallic hair and glitter makeup scream generic fairy circa 1980, and her magic is sometimes accompanied successfully by sounds produced live, and other times announced awkwardly with recorded bells.

Caliban, Prospero's less-than-human slave, seems appropriate if unimaginative in tattered clothes, but why would Prospero's child also don rags? Caliban also sports a puzzlingly plain, cheap gray mask, removed when he thinks he's free of Prospero (but isn't). All of the characters wear sandals � even the shipwrecked noblemen, costumed in pseudo-Elizabethan garb by Cathie Miglionico � but some with black socks. Artful whimsy? No, distracting mayhem.

Two of Shakespeare's greatest clowns bumble incoherently, even when lines dictate stacking Caliban and Trinculo (Zoran Kovcic) under a blanket, thus appearing to drunken Stephano (Spencer Gates) as one beast with four legs and two heads. Some actors sport British accents, others do not, and one � Newton Buchanon as Ferdinand, Miranda's beloved � speaks in singsong mush.

Buchanon's redeemed by his lighting design, all playful shadows and warm colors, and Kovcic's subtly textured, two-level set helps speed the action. But where's it all headed, who's it all for, what's it all saying? For the first two minutes, I thought someone knew.

The Tempest

Through June 9Hedgerow Theatre64 Rose Valley, Road, Media610-565-4211, www.hedgerowtheatre.org

 

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