There are loads of brilliant ideas in this kids’ production of ‘The Tempest’ from director Jennifer Tang, which wittily casts Mark Theodore’s Prospero as a dour tech company mogul cast adrift on a desert island by his jealous rivals. With a shade more license to tweak the text than in a regular ‘adult’ production of Shakespeare’s late play, Tang makes explicit Prospero’s status as a coloniser, who seizes control of the island and uses technology crafted from oceanic junk to enslave the island’s spirits, Ariel and Caliban.
Chiara Stephenson’s set is a lovely thing, towers of bright jungle vegetation rising above the ramshackle dwelling of the magician and his daughter Miranda (Daisy Prosper) – inside it an electricity-generating bike set up that Ashley D Gale’s Caliban is forced to pedal to charge Prospero’s various devices, aka his ‘books’.
It’s extremely winning and bubbling with good ideas, but despite the benefit of being able to tweak the text, Tang’s ‘Tempest’ ultimately feels like it runs aground on the requirements of being a truncated kids’ show.
The incongruously Disney-toned songs by Harry Blake are a fair enough sop to the kids. However, the doubling up of actors combined with heavy edits to the story leave it all feeling less and less coherent as it wears on. In particular, the ‘Stefano, Trinculo and Caliban get pissed’ subplot feels like it comes in too late and then proceeds to take up far too much time. And there’s just not the time to really engage with the whole techbros-at-sea concept. Theodore’s Prospero essentially has to abruptly become a much nicer guy, fairly early on, in order to keep pace with events.
I doubt much of this is going to be an issue for a primary schooler: it’s a bright, brisk and engaging take, with diverting tunes, a bit of audience interaction, and few solid chuckles. If tweens struggle to follow exactly what’s going on, then welcome to a lifetime of watching Shakespeare, kids! It would just be nice to think that when they’re older, they might get to see these same ideas realised in Tang’s full-length version.