The Tempest and the American Canon

Denis Arndt

The Shakespearean canon is an Anglophonic cultural cornerstone. In the 19th century, with the emergent Romantic movement, the Bard began to be venerated as the king of English literature, winning that throne even from King James (who has a Bible named after him). His work is perennial taught to school children and college students, maintaining his primacy in the American canon.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival's current production of The Tempest is a theatrical outgrowth of Shakespeare's literary canonization. Director Tony Taccone and dramaturg Barry Kraft give primacy to Shakespeare's text by avoided a pointed director's concept. They do give nods to The Tempest's complicated production history, but don't let any dramaturgy later than the Jacobean dominate.

Alexander V. Nichols' lighting drives the titular tempest along with the actors' movement. Those on board sway as if upon a storm-rocked vessel, and Prospero (Denis Arndt) kneels in the foreground manipulating a toy ship. Dancers (Will Cooper, Tim Rubel, David Silpa and Jordon Waters) are his servant spirits, manipulating the Neapolitans and Milanese unseen. Their heads are shaved like Arndt's, and they are painted chalk white. Daniel Ostling's set is austerely open, with hard monochromatic angles. The storm subsides, and Prospero exposites the information we need to know to understand the subsequent story to his daughter Miranda (Alejandra Escalante). The plot resumes with Caliban's (Wayne T. Carr) emergence. He is painted red and yellow and is bald as well. This is the palette on which Shakespeare's classic fable of forgiveness and discovery unfolds.

Taccone is conservative in his approach, yet gives nods to post-Jacobean dramaturgies in his use of staging, costuming the island's denizens and his casting choices. The open space is a clear nod to Peter Brook's aesthetic, and the Bhutto dancing and make-up are also reminiscent of Brook's interest in Asian theater. The rest of the cast is dressed in the height of Jacobean fashion by costume designer Anita Yavich. Only two black men are cast: Wayne T. Carr as Caliban and Bruce A. Young as Gonzalo. It makes sense to cast either an African-American or Native American as Caliban: he is a Caribbean islander, and such casting calls into focus the colonial origins of The Tempest. But, by casting an African-American as one of the Milanese, Taccone diffuses a postcolonial reading of the play while acknowledging that such a reading is possible and legitimate. These choices serve to educate the audience about the text without taking the text in either of these directions.

This Tempest is a piece of educational theater, meant to reinforce Shakespeare as a cultural cornerstone. It acknowledges Shakespeare's literary canonization by giving primacy to the text, while also acknowledging that his literature is meant for the theater by nodding to potent dramaturgies that are informed by Shakespeare's work. The breadth of Shakespeare's work and its effect on the English language and American stage make it important for Anglophonic Americans to understand and be conversant in. Taccone's direction of The Tempest gracefully reinforces this need by paying homage to its Jacobean origins while acknowledging the evolving readings of this play.