Act One, Scene Two, D. Essential elements:

• Our premise is that Prospero has planned out this encounter meticulously, and it goes almost precisely as intended. His unexpected challenge is that he himself is extremely volatile: his pretended anger at Ferdinand and then at Miranda verge into the actual. He struggles between joy and rage.

• He is unprepared for Miranda’s challenging him. Though bending before her father’s rage, she’s discovering her own will.

• The intensity of their attraction to one another—more instant and direct than Romeo & Juliet—must be deep and true, not just a theatrical convention: strong enough to shake them to their roots and also to unsettle Prospero.

• Ariel appears, as Prospero directed, as a sea nymph. Ferdinand doesn’t see him, but this guise represents the ’seductiveness" of the music upon him.

1:2D - PROSPERO’S SUCCESS IN SPARKING EXPLOSIVE CHEMISTRY BETWEEN FERDINAND AND MIRANDA CHALLENGES HIS SELF-CONTROL.

01-Far Left, Prospero covers Miranda’s eyes and she falls asleep. New music. Ferdinand appears entranced by the music, Center. Slow movement of water images.

02-Ariel appears behind him in the guise of sea nymph. As he sings, a second Ariel puppet periodically appears from behind, one or the other teasing Ferdinand, stroking him, playfully adding to his confusion.

>>>Ariel: Come unto these yellow sands,
>>>And then take hands:
>>>Curtsied when you have, and kiss’d,
>>>The wild waves whist,
>>>Foot it featly here and there;
>>>And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
>>>Hark, hark!
>>>Bow wow, bow wow
>>>The watch-dogs bark:
>>>Bow wow, bow wow
>>>Hark, hark! I hear
>>>The strain of strutting Chanticleer
>>>Cry cock-a-diddle-dow.

Voices echo. Ferdinand is spinning dizzily, loses balance, falls from exhaustion. The cock crow revives him. Slowly recovering:

>>>Ferdinand: Where should this Music be? i’ th’ air, or th’ earth?
>>>It sounds no more; and sure, it waits upon
>>>Some God o’ th’ island. Sitting on a bank,
>>>Weeping again the King my Father’s wrack,
>>>This Music crept by me upon the waters,
>>>Allaying both their fury and my passion
>>>With its sweet air: but ’tis gone.
>>>No, it begins again.

03-Ariel rises slowly, very close behind Ferdinand, both rocking slowly.

>>>Ariel: Full fathom five thy Father lies;
>>>Of his bones are Coral made:
>>>Those are pearls that were his eyes:
>>>Nothing of him that doth fade,
>>>But doth suffer a Sea-change
>>>Into something rich and strange.
>>>Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
>>>Ding-dong.
>>>Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell.

Ferdinand weeping. Music slowly disappears, then distant sounds. He looks about in fear and wonder.

>>>Ferdinand: This is no mortal business, nor no sound
>>>That the earth owns: I hear it now above me.

04-He begins turning, as if caught in a pattern. Multiple images of him appear behind. Prospero passes his hand over Miranda’s face. She wakes and sees Ferdinand.

>>>Prospero: The fringed Curtains of thine eye advance,
>>>And say what thou seest yond.
>>>Miranda: What is’t? a Spirit?
>>>Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,
>>>It carries a brave form. But ’tis a spirit.
>>>Prospero: No, wench; it eats and sleeps, and hath such senses
>>>As we have, such; this Gallant which thou see’st,
>>>Was in the wrack; he hath lost his fellows
>>>And strays about to find ’em.
>>>Miranda: I might call him
>>>A thing divine; for nothing natural
>>>I ever saw so Noble.
>>>Prospero: It goes on, I see,
>>>As my soul prompts it.

Ferdinand moves about in C, trying to sense direction, from one still tableau to another. Miranda moves toward Ferdinand, into the central area. Prospero remains far R. Ariel appears high above L

>>>Sprite, fine sprite! I’ll free thee
>>>Within two days for this.

A sound of delight. Ariel disappears.

05-Ferdinand sees Miranda, and suddenly both are whirled by their Spirit puppeteers into Center. Prospero raises wand, but concentrated within himself, never looking at them. Sudden freezes alternate with radical reactions: comic extravagance of an electric current of attraction, but absolutely real. At third freeze, they stand at a distance. He addresses her as if she’s unlikely to understand English.

>>>Ferdinand: Most sure, the Goddess
>>>On whom these airs attend! Vouchsafe, my prayer
>>>May know if you reside upon this island;
>>>And that you will some good instruction give
>>>How I may bear me here: my prime request is,—
>>>O you wonder!— if you be maid or no?

She breaks eye contact. Turns front.

>>>Miranda: No wonder, sir;
>>>But certainly a maid.

Ferdinand turns front.

>>>Ferdinand: My language! heavens!—
>>>I am the best of them that speak this speech,
>>>Were I but where ’tis spoken.

06-Prospero forcefully into central area. Miranda and Ferdinand still dumbstruck, faced forward. Ferdinand sees Prospero for a moment—Prospero’s focus downward, as if an old, weak man—then turns forward again in formally self-effacing greeting.

>>>Prospero: How! the best?
>>>What wert thou, if the King of Naples heard thee?
>>>Ferdinand: A solitary thing that wonders
>>>To hear thee speak of Naples. Myself am Naples,
>>>Who with mine eyes,—ne’er since at ebb,—beheld
>>>The King, my Father wrack’d.
>>>Miranda: Alack, for mercy!

Turns to him.

>>>Ferdinand: Yes, faith, his lords, and the Duke of Milan.
>>>Prospero: The Duke of Milan could refute thee now,
>>>If now ‘twere fit to do’t. At the first sight
>>>They have changed eyes: Delicate Ariel,
>>>I’ll set thee free for this!— A word, good Sir;
>>>I fear you have done yourself some wrong: a word.

07-Ferdinand impulsively moves Right toward Miranda; Prospero moves around him, restrains him from left. Ferdinand remains focused on Miranda.

>>>Miranda: Why speaks my father so ungently? This
>>>Is the third man that e’er I saw; the first
>>>That e’er I sigh’d for: pity move my father
>>>To be inclin’d my way!
>>>Ferdinand: O! if a Virgin,
>>>And your affection not gone forth, I’ll make you
>>>The Queen of Naples.

08-Miranda with a strong impulse toward him. Prospero intervenes between them. Series of tableaux, as if sudden still frames—tense emotion expressed in the sharpness of movements between images.

>>>Prospero: Soft, sir: one word more—
>>>They are both in either’s powers: but this swift business
>>>I must uneasy make, lest too light winning
>>>Make the prize light.— One word more: I charge thee
>>>That thou attend me.

Prospero forces Miranda to Right, Ferdinand falls back to Left. They are in confrontation.

>>> Thou dost here usurp
>>>The name thou ownst not; and hast put thyself
>>>Upon this island as a spy, to win it
>>>From me, the Lord of it.
>>>Ferdinand: No, as I am a man.
>>>Miranda: There’s nothing ill can dwell in such a Temple:
>>>Prospero: Follow me. Speak not for him; he’s a traitor. Come;
>>>I’ll manacle thy neck and feet together:
>>>Sea-water shalt thou drink; thy food shall be
>>>The fresh-brook mussels, wither’d roots and husks
>>>Wherein the Acorn cradled. Follow.
>>>Ferdinand: No;
>>>I will resist such entertainment till
>>>Mine enemy has more power.

09-He draws his sword. Prospero gestures. Two Spirits rise from behind him. Prospero covers Miranda’s eyes.

10-Ferdinand struggles, but they bring the sword blade to his throat.

>>>Miranda: O dear father!
>>>Make not too rash a trial of him.

11-Miranda struggles to be free of Prospero, as the Spirits wrench Ferdinand into new postures. Prospero into true fury:

>>>Prospero: What! I say,
>>>My foot my Tutor?—Put thy sword up, Traitor;
>>>For I can here disarm thee with this stick
>>>And make thy weapon drop.
>>>Miranda: Beseech you, father!
>>>Prospero: Hence: hang not on my garments.
>>>Miranda: Sir, have pity!
>>>Prospero: Silence: one word more
>>>Shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee. What!
>>>An advocate for an Impostor? Hush!
>>>Thou think’st there is no more such shapes as he,
>>>Having seen but him and Caliban: Foolish wench!
>>>To the most of men this is a Caliban
>>>And they to him are Angels.

12-Miranda overcome, kneels, faced away from Prospero.

>>>Miranda: My affections
>>>Are then most humble; I have no ambition
>>>To see a goodlier man.

All freeze in tortured tableau.

13-Music. Ferdinand animates, speaks, as if in dream, to the Spirits who are restraining him.

>>>Ferdinand: My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.
>>>My Father’s loss, the weakness which I feel,
>>>The wrack of all my friends, or this man’s threats,
>>>To whom I am subdued, are but light to me,
>>>Might I but through my prison once a day
>>>Behold this Maid: all corners else o’ th’ Earth
>>>Let liberty make use of; space enough
>>>Have I in such a prison.

He kneels. Spirits disappear behind him.

14A-Prospero moves UC from Miranda. Ariel appears above.

>>>Prospero: It works.— Come on.—
>>>Thou hast done well, fine Ariel!— Follow me.—
>>>[To Ariel.] Hark what thou else shalt do me.

14B-He gestures toward Ferdinand, who moves slowly off Up Right, bowed low as if in fetters. Miranda speaks to Ferdinand from a distance as he departs, fully within Prospero’s hearing.

>>>Miranda: Be of comfort;
>>>My father’s of a better nature, sir,
>>>Than he appears by speech.

14C-Prospero, as he follows Ferdinand off slowly, calls up to Ariel, sotto voce:

>>>Prospero: Thou shalt be as free
>>>As mountain winds; but then exactly do
>>>All points of my command.
>>>Ariel: To the syllable.
>>>Prospero: Come, follow.— Speak not for him.

Ferdinand and Prospero off. Miranda turns front, struck with the newness, joy and pain of it all. To black.

•••

Most of our focus this week has been on Rash Acts, finishing the second week of the run. Strong response from small houses, though slowly building. Cleaned the studio and started to put order into the shop, in preparation for starting the build on Tempest. Beginning to really love the hand puppets in Rash Acts—first time ever using this type—and kinda sad that hand puppets won’t fit in Tempest.

And editing a video trailer for Rash Acts, a good way to get back into the swing of mastering Final Cut Express. Next up will be editing of a dvd of the whole show, and then starting to design the video projections for the magical isle.

Next blog entry Feb. 9.

—Conrad