In ‘The Tempest’ Prospero Can Be A Woman

Prospero comes in all shapes, sizes and dispositions. The powerful and sometimes vengeful magician in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” can be athletic, he can be remote, he can be cruel, he can be forgiving.

He can be a woman. 

Or, as in The Sherman Playhouse production, he can be a man played by a woman. The director, Robin Frome, updates the play to the 1930’s. Katherine Almquist’s brave performance of Prospero depicts him as controlling, of course, and bent on punishing those who exiled him and his infant daughter, Miranda (Lizzy Booth), to a pile of ocean rocks  far from Milan. He was a duke there, a rather remote duke keeping to his studies of magic and power, leaving administrative duties to his brother Antonio(Thomas Mendicino).  And so it goes for such a character in the worlds of government, medicine, academia, commerce, maybe even journalism. He is ejected.

It is interesting that this Prospero, living like a monk in a cell,  dresses as a military fellow in a red jacket festooned with gold epaulets and wearing very tall leather boots. But that military posture, along with the magical ability to deliver  pain and misery, keeps the monster Caliban (John Bergdahl), bent on sexual moves on Miranda and other mischiefs, in line.  

“The Tempest” is brimming with schemers and would-be assassins, but Prospero and Ariel (played by Liv Heaton) are the major characters here. Yes there is Miranda, 15 years old now, who is stirred, awakened and amazed at the appearance of men — “O brave new world that has such creatures in it,” she declares at the sight of shipwrecked fellows delivered on shore; there are the comics Trinculo (played by the amazingly gifted Tyler Holm) and Stephano (the equally theatrical and gifted Frederic Thaler), who, along with Caliban, get a spontaneous burst of applause for their drunken high jinks involving a  plan to murder Prospero. 

   And for romance, there is Ferdinand (Patrick Fergus),  the shipwrecked prince of Naples, who promises Miranda marriage, a royal title and. by virtue of considerable pressure from Prospero, chastity until after the wedding vows.

   But the play’s most riveting characters are Prospero and his sprite Ariel. This spirit is in service to the island’s master, who has promised the blue painted Ariel freedom after the next two days of magic and manipulation. Their parting can be a mystical moment in some productions; here, however, it is brief and casual. But that was director Robin Frome’s choice in wrapping up this  compelling production of Shakespeare’s wondrous play.

 “The Tempest” by William Shakespeare runs at The Sherman Playhouse, 5 CT-39, Sherman, CT through July 20. For tickets and information go to www.shermanplayers.org.