Tempest #13 - Prospero Summons Ariel - 1:2 Storyboard
Act One, Scene Two, B. Essential elements:
• Prospero has forced Miranda to sleep in order to summon Ariel. His knowledge and his power are in secret, withheld from her. A need for this power, and a shame in it..
• Power of Ariel, very difficult to hold in check. Again, the strain on Prospero, having already exhausted himself in the tempest.
• Extreme volatility of Prospero, ruthless in his power. When he threatens Ariel with torture, he means it. In this staging, to make that unmistakable, he actually starts to do it.
• The “otherness” of Ariel: his emotions don’t follow the rhythm we expect. He can shift from play to revolt to rage to terror to joy, all in an eyeblink. Totally in the moment.
• In a sense, he’s symbiotic with Prospero. Prospero achieves this power by accessing and manifesting a deep level of self. This makes his relinquishing it all the more difficult and all the more painful.
• Sycorax is always present in potential. Prospero could in fact wind up being possessed by this virulent dead creature.
1:2B - THE MAGICIAN, IN SECRET, SUMMONS HIS CAPTIVE SPIRIT TO CARRY FORTH HIS PLOT, BUT FACES A SLAVE REVOLT AND SUPPRESSES IT RUTHLESSLY.
01 - Miranda sleeps. Prospero moves to far R. Spirits bring up his cloak & he dons it. He takes staff, spins in place, calling out.
>>>Prospero: Come away, servant, come! I’m ready now.
>>>Approach, my Ariel; come!
Nothing happens. He gestures twice again, the last with another sign of his hand. Music. Lightning.
02 - Ariel appears one place and another all about the stage (3 near-identical puppets). Struggle by Prospero to see him and contain him.
>>>Ariel: All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
>>>To answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly,
>>>To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
>>>On the curl’d clouds: to thy strong bidding task
>>>Ariel and all his quality.
03 - At last Ariel appears from directly behind Prospero, reaching to touch him. Prospero stops him by a magical grasp (not actually touching).
>>>Prospero: Hast thou, Spirit,
>>>Perform’d to point the Tempest that I bade thee?
Ariel struggles to escape, with powerful spasms, then suddenly surrenders.
>>>Ariel: To every Article.
He is motionless, then with spasms of sudden movement, disappearing and reappearing, Prospero containing him, then again losing grasp.
>>>I boarded the King’s ship; now on the Beak,
>>>Now in the Waist, the Deck, in every Cabin,
>>>I flam’d amazement:
Movement, then freeze. Echoes.
>>> sometime I’d divide
>>>And burn in many places; on the Topmast,
>>>The Yards, and Bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
>>>Then meet, and join:
Movement, then freeze. Echoes.
>>> the fire and cracks
>>>Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune
>>>Seem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble,
>>>Yea, his dread Trident shake.
04 - Prospero grasps him magically, holds him.
>>>Prospero: My brave Spirit!
>>>Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
>>>Would not infect his reason?
>>>Ariel: Not a soul
>>>But felt a Fever of the mad and play’d
>>>Some tricks of desperation.
Movement, then freeze. Ariel fierce. Echoes.
>>> All but Mariners
>>>Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,
>>>Then all a-fire with me:
Movement, then freeze. Ariel fierce, alternating with giggles and roars. Echoes.
>>> the king’s son, Ferdinand,
>>>With hair up-staring,—then like reeds, not hair,—
>>>Was the first man that leap’d; cried, ’Hell is empty,
>>>And all the Devils are here.’
>>>Prospero: Why, that’s my spirit!
Sudden change in Prospero: twists hand to seize Ariel, in desperation.
>>>But are they, Ariel, safe?
>>>Ariel: Not a hair perish’d;
05 - Change in Ariel: Dances about, legato & fairylike, like sprinkling dew on roses, almost camp. Prospero continues dialogue in slow, focused tone.
>>>On their sustaining garments not a blemish,
>>>But fresher than before: and, as thou bad’st me,
>>>In troops I have dispers’d them ’bout the isle.
>>>The King’s son have I landed by himself;
>>>Whom I left cooling of the Air with sighs
>>>His arms in this sad knot.
>>>Prospero: Of the King’s ship,
>>>The Mariners, say how thou hast dispos’d,
>>>And all the rest o’ the Fleet.
>>>Ariel: Safely in harbour
>>>Is the King’s ship; in the deep Nook, where once
>>>Thou call’dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
>>>From the still-vex’d Bermudas; there she’s hid:
>>>The Mariners all under hatches stow’d
>>>I have left asleep: and for the rest o’ the Fleet
>>>Which I dispers’d, they all have met again,
>>>Bound sadly home for Naples,
Sudden, violently melodramatic gestures and snarl:
>>>Supposing that they saw the King’s ship wrack’d,
>>>And his great person perish.
06 - Prospero gestures to get him back under control. Both are frozen as he speaks, held in tension.
>>>Prospero: Ariel, thy charge
>>>Exactly is perform’d: but there’s more work:
>>>What is the time o’ th’ day?
>>>Ariel: Past the mid season.
Sharp spasm.
>>>Prospero: The time ’twixt six and now
>>>Must by us both be spent most preciously.
>>>Ariel: Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,
>>>Let me remember thee what thou hast promis’d.
07 - Sharp spasm.
>>>Prospero: How now! moody?
>>>What is ’t thou canst demand?
>>>Ariel: My Liberty.
>>>Prospero: Before the time be out?
>>>Ariel: I prithee
>>>Remember, I have done thee worthy service;
>>>Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, serv’d
>>>Without grudge or grumblings: thou didst promise
>>>To bate me a full year.
>>>Prospero: Dost thou forget
>>>From what a torment I did free thee?
>>>Ariel: No.
>>>Prospero: Thou dost; and think’st it much to tread the Ooze
>>>Of the salt deep,
>>>To run upon the sharp wind of the North,
>>>To do me business in the veins o’ th’ earth
>>>When it is bak’d with frost.
>>>Ariel: I do not, Sir.
Prospero jerks wand one way and another, jerking Ariel back and forth.
>>>Prospero: Thou liest, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot
08 - Black shape rises with hands behind Ariel. Hands threaten him. Blurred image of Syracorax’ face appears behind, transforming. Ariel terrified, struggles against grasp of hands. Hands twist him to different shapes. Prospero rages, R of center.
>>>The foul Witch Sycorax, who with Age and Envy
>>>Was grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her?
>>>Ariel: No, Sir.
>>>Prospero: Thou hast. Where was she born? speak; tell me.
>>>Ariel: Sir, in Argier.
>>>Prospero: O! was she so? I must,
>>>Once in a month, recount what thou hast been,
>>>Which thou forget’st.
Ariel in unison with Prospero:
>>>This damn’d Witch Sycorax,
>>>For mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible
>>>To enter human hearing, from Argier,
>>>Thou know’st, was banish’d: Is not this true?
>>>Ariel: Ay, sir.
>>>Prospero: This blear-ey’d hag was hither brought with child
>>>And here was left by the Sailors. Thou, my slave,
>>>As thou report’st thyself, wast then her servant:
09 - Sycorax, masked, rises behind Ariel, grasps him. He shakes violently, tries to get away. Periodic shrieks.
>>>And, for thou wast a Spirit too delicate
>>>To act her earthy and abhorr’d commands,
>>>Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee
>>>Into a cloven Pine; within which rift
>>>Imprison’d, thou didst painfully remain
>>>A dozen years; within which space she died
>>>And left thee there.
Sycorax disappears. Ariel is left bound and shrieking, in unison speech with Prospero:
>>>Then was this Island,—
>>>Save for the Son that she did litter here,
>>>A freckled whelp, hag-born,—not honour’d with
>>>A human shape.
>>>Ariel: Yes; Caliban her son.
10 - End of unison. Prospero very close to Ariel—still as if trapped and tortured.
>>>Prospero: Dull thing, I say so; he that Caliban,
>>>Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know’st
>>>What torment I did find thee in; thy groans
>>>Did make wolves howl and penetrate the breasts
>>>Of ever-angry Bears: it was a torment
>>>To lay upon the damn’d, which Sycorax
>>>Could not again undo; it was mine Art,
>>>When I arriv’d and heard thee, that made gape
>>>The Pine, and let thee out.
Prospero releases Ariel from the imagined torture. Ariel exhausted, grateful:
>>>Ariel: I thank thee, master.
>>>Prospero: If thou more murmur’st, I will rend an Oak
>>>And peg thee in his knotty entrails till
>>>Thou hast howl’d away twelve winters.
Strong pause, waiting for Ariel’s response. No movement. Total capitulation:
>>>Ariel: Pardon, master;
>>>I will be correspondent to command,
>>>And do my spriting gently.
>>>Prospero: Do so; and after two days
>>>I will discharge thee.
Ariel cries in delight, sharp movements about, as if nothing had happened.
>>>Ariel: That’s my noble Master!
>>>What shall I do? say what? what shall I do?
Prospero turns away from Ariel to command.
>>>Prospero: Go make thyself like a Nymph of the Sea: be subject
>>>To no sight but thine and mine; invisible
>>>To every eyeball else. Go, hence with diligence!
Ariel makes several spasmodic starts in different directions, then disappears.
11 - Hands remove cloak from Prospero; he comes to the sleeping Miranda.
>>>Awake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well;
>>>Awake!
Passes hand over her face; she wakes. Prospero turns and reveals Prospero Puppet.
>>>Miranda: The strangeness of your story put
>>>Heaviness in me.
12 - Prospero Puppet embraces Miranda.
Does that seem like an interesting direction to go? I welcome comments and wild ideas.
A second workshop—I’ll write about it next week. And welcome to Danny, our new student intern from Bennington College. He’ll be working with us into early February. And just completing the 32 puppets for Rash Acts, the last being a monumentally difficult lifesize creature who doubles as a volcano.
Happy to get word that we’ll be presenting a workshop at the national conference of Puppeteers of America this summer; we’ll focus on dialogue writing for puppet theatre. It’s simple: just be Shakespeare.
— Conrad
Next entry; Dec. 22
Comments (6)
Conrad and Elizabeth--
Yes Yes Yes, keep me informed! I'll never forget the Macbeth puppet show at Univ. of Pgh. May Tempest turn out to be as thrilling as that. (I'll also never forget the comment of one of my most able and turned off from theatre students back then who said after Macbeth, This takes me back to theatre now with a will.)
Tempest is to my mind one of the greatest of that guy's plays, but that Act I, sc 2 Prospero telling back story and putting even Miranda to sleep is hands down one of the most boring scenes ever written. First suggestion: play that story out fully -- with Prospero's voiceover -- as the play's first scene - before storm. It will do wonders for the shipwrecked characters coming up on the island after the storm -- make their presence and story that much more compelling -- and understood.
I'll certainly have further suggestions for you to ignore. Get ready.
Posted by Leon Katz | December 17, 2008 8:07 PM
Your thought about the first scenes: I'll think about that. Interesting clip on YouTube of Patrick Stewart doing this scene. Other than the weirdness of an arctic setting, with Stewart as a kind of Inuit shaman rather than Hermetic ceremonial magician, he embodied the kind of extreme volatility I see in Prospero, and it was anything but dull. Also helped by a Miranda who was utterly under his control, yet had nothing plaintive about her, had a kind of scarcely-withheld rage at his power & his deed. I don't think she's the least bit sleepy, despite Prospero's constant prodding. At the end, he puts sleep upon her in order to speak to Ariel -- whom she never sees and I think never has seen.
Storm scene itself is a nightmarish thing to handle. Only productions I've seen, it's been totally incomprehensible -- think it has to be composed almost like a choral anthem, with sudden blasts of the storm, then recessive. Did a bit of experiment in the workshop today; will write it up.
Anyway, yes, all thoughts are welcome, and yours above all. A few get adopted full blast, some lead me into paths I might not have wandered into, some just weld me more firmly to my own notions but push me into a fuller articulation.
Posted by Conrad Bishop | December 17, 2008 8:18 PM
Conrad, I enjoy these monthly updates.
You define Ariel as a force of nature, an elemental of air and fire. But the character, in your vision, is a male.
...Frankly, I think Ariel is a mix of genders, but that's just me.
You you share this: "Ariel�s gender has no specific function, yet
there's a powerful sexuality in his action, his sensual language, his
emotion. He�s often been played as a woman or as a blond, gay-poster-boy
type. But I�m thinking maybe his core being is older, a spirit that may
take youthful forms but who is, in his eyes, as old, as fecund, and as
polymorphous as the island itself. He is the island."
Okay, I get that, Conrad. Yet, in your mind, Ariel is a guy. Why? Why
not asexual or androgynous? Ariel is not Puck, afterall
Posted by Bill Smith | December 17, 2008 8:25 PM
Hi, Bill--
My thinking is this. Indeed, Ariel isn't the Puck: Robin Goodfellow
is a domestic trickster, Ariel raises tempests. Not that I haven't
encountered powerful females -- I've been married to one for 48 years
-- but somehow to me the male energy here is more forceful. As I
wrote, I feel Ariel is genuinely dangerous, like playing with
dynamite, very hard for Prospero to control. Not remotely
malevolent, but just like a high voltage that can fry you in an
instant. I think we'd see that power in a female persona as somehow
malevolent & evil. Maybe it's just my mindset, but there's something
inherently more frightening to me about a highly unpredictable male
than an unpredictable female (and I've known a number of both).
Second point: "Asexual" to me connotes lack of passion or energy.
But Ariel has a capacity to weld himself into consciousness, to hone
in on the deepest soul of Ferdinand or of Alonso, which to me is
highly erotic in the broadest sense of the term. "Androgenous" I
agree with totally. But I've never seen androgeny manifest in
someone who was of *no* sex. It's either a male with strong female
characteristics, or vice versa, and for me the
male-with-female-attributes connotes androgeny more directly than the
opposite. Again, of course, that's a culturally-constructed bias,
but that's part of the palette of theatre.
I think also there's a special focus on Miranda as the sole female in
the play. She never comes into direct awareness of Ariel, and while
that separation might be used in an interesting way, I think it'd
diminish the extraordinary focus on Miranda's self-discovery as a
woman.
I've always felt, having seen a number of attempts to the contrary,
that Shakespeare's characters -- all of them -- demand real,
recognizable faces and embodiments. I've never liked abstract,
black-leotard Shakespeare work, even though you can go into very
extravagant physical & vocal stylization. So I guess I'd say, for
some of the above reasons but also just out of gut feeling, that I've
seen men whom I'd take as life models for Ariel, but I can't think of
any women who would do that for me.
Anyway, I really value wrestling with that question, as well as with
the notion of playing Prospero as a woman, which seems to be gaining
a lot of traction.
>And is this a function of that fact that you're doing this production in
>puppetry?
No, I don't think so. What puppetry does is to allow me to design my
actors totally out of my imagination, rather than waiting for them to
show up at auditions. And to give them physical dynamics not
possible with live actors (or "meat puppets" as they're sometimes
known among puppeteers).
Posted by Conrad Bishop | December 17, 2008 8:31 PM
I accept your explanations, Conrad. They are well thought out. And
it's your production, your vision.... so you are artistically entitled
to make your own statement.
Now, I am questioning myself why I've always assumed Ariel is female. I
guess in part because every production of Tempest I've ever seen cast
the character that way. (And I've seen many.) One of my best director
friends directed the play at Colorado Shakespeare Festival some years
ago. This Ariel was lithe, very feminine and had acrobatic skills you
would not believe. And she employed these skills in her scenes with
Prospero in a delightfully flirtatious manner.
While I've not directed the play, I've coached soliloquies and scenes
more times than I can count.... and for a variety of reasons, I've just
always seen Prospero's two servants as: Caliban is a GUY, and there's
no need to question that. But Ariel? The sex? I still lean toward
casting a female, (and yes, Conrad, like you, I'm mated with very
powerful women); and yet I get your slant.
And yes, I get your points on asexual versus androgyny....
> I think also there's a special focus on Miranda as the sole female in
> the play. She never comes into direct awareness of Ariel, and while
> that separation might be used in an interesting way, I think it'd
> diminish the extraordinary focus on Miranda's self-discovery as a
> woman.
That argument is appealing. Yes, if Miranda has never had a female role
model, well it makes more challenging her involvement with the new boy
toy on the island.
> >And is this a function of that fact that you're doing this production in
> >puppetry?
>
> No, I don't think so. What puppetry does is to allow me to design my
> actors totally out of my imagination, rather than waiting for them to
> show up at auditions. And to give them physical dynamics not
> possible with live actors (or "meat puppets" as they're sometimes
> known among puppeteers).
The one and only time I worked with puppets was in your production of
"Alice" at Theatre X. It was a great experience, working with
hand-and-rod puppets, which are so much more expressive than hand
puppets or marionettes.
One more question, Conrad. If Ariel is the "embodiment" of the island,
what is Caliban's purpose/function? He's got to be more than slightly
scary comic relief, more that just the beast.
Posted by Bill Smith | December 17, 2008 8:34 PM
Dear Bill--
It's great for me to have this dialogue. It's one thing to spin out
one's notions on a blog or to our workshop guinea pigs, but
different to jaunt out naked in a public forum.
I've written some stuff on the blog and tried to tie it more into my
whole vision of TEMPEST, so I'll just sketch out a couple of things
here, and if they strike anyone as too off-the-wall, I'll be glad to
go deeper into it.
So, what we know about Caliban:
* He's deformed in some way. (But human, simply because I don't know
what dramatic interest there is in making him half-alligator, etc.)
Given the chronologies of the play, he'd be in his late twenties, and
the only human beings he's had contact with are Sycorax, Prospero and
Miranda.
* He was a playfellow & companion with Miranda until she became
adolescent, and he attempted to have sex with her.
* He "knows" the island, and yet alternates between great love of it
and enormous fears. He's not a "native" of it -- Sycorax was an
immigrant, and he's grown up in total isolation. The only
description of any interaction between Caliban and the spirits of the
island (including Ariel) is of their terrifying and torturing him.
* There's a simplicity in his thinking, and he's volatile, but also
possessed of extraordinary perception of beauty.
* Is he "earthy?" Not sure what that means, and I don't know what
flows from the "earth vs. air" duality -- that seems of literary
interest, but unrelated to what actually happens on stage.
Most interpretation of him flows from two sources: Prospero's
statement that he tried to rape Miranda (with his apparent
corroboration, "O ho, would it had been done!), and the gorgeous
poetry of "The isle is full of noises."
Most people take "did seek to violate the honor of my child" and his
reply as confession of an attempt at forcible rape, painting him as
the essence of all evil. I don't see it that way. To me, his
overriding essence is *loneliness." He was orphaned in the
wilderness; suddenly, he's taken into a family; suddenly, thru
following his natural instincts, he's expelled and enslaved. (I
believe Prospero's reaction would have been the same whether it had
been two innocent kids fumbling each other or an assault -- it's
peculiarly perverse for Prospero to force Miranda into Caliban's
presence.) Then he has no weapon other than curses and bravado. At
last he enlists with the drunken clowns, to be revenged, yes, but
above all to be *included." There's nothing noble about him -- his
need is too naked -- and so, yes, he's comic in the same way
Malvolio's final public humiliation is comic: comedy with real pain.
For me, in this sense he's the precursor of Mary Shelley's Creature,
whose violence and monstrosity comes out of his abandonment by his
creator and his rejection by human society -- great mental acuity but
utterly naive in the ways of the world. I'm seeing him with some
physical characteristics of Downs syndrome -- not necessarily
retarded, but genetically "damaged" in some way -- disturbing not
because he looks utterly bizarre but because he looks and acts normal
but "blurred."
I'm also leaning more and more to accepting another director's idea
(I don't remember whose) that as a consequence of his attempt with
Miranda, Prospero has castrated him. What alternative would he have,
as a means of protecting Miranda for who knows how many years? "Thou
didst prevent me" suggests a finality, as does the following, "I had
peopl'd else this isle with Calibans." This is consistent with his
later proposition that Stephano take Miranda as his queen -- Caliban
has no further hope of her, though he's still obsessed by her.
All that, of course, is dependent on what it does for the balance of
the play, especially as it impacts on Prospero. I don't at all see
Prospero as a villain or vile colonialist, but as a man deeply
divided against himself. If there's any conflict in the play, it
lies within him. His battle is different in shape than Leontes', but
as full of extremes.
Anyway, that's the short answer, and the very tentative one. I'll be
starting the sculpting in January, and then the clay will start
telling me who Caliban wants to be.
Posted by Conrad Bishop | December 17, 2008 8:39 PM