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'Just imagine you've been marooned on a deserted island | 0:00:05 | 0:00:08 | |
'for 12 years...' | 0:00:08 | 0:00:11 | |
when, amazingly, | 0:00:11 | 0:00:13 | |
the men who conspired to put you here, | 0:00:13 | 0:00:17 | |
are shipwrecked in a storm | 0:00:17 | 0:00:19 | |
and are washed up, defenceless, onto the same shore. | 0:00:19 | 0:00:22 | |
They're at your mercy. | 0:00:22 | 0:00:24 | |
So what are you going to do? | 0:00:24 | 0:00:26 | |
'This is a story of anger and the search for revenge, | 0:00:26 | 0:00:32 | |
'of paternal love and sacrifice, all unfolding in a magical world. | 0:00:32 | 0:00:37 | |
'Along the way, we'll see a creature that's barely human, | 0:00:38 | 0:00:42 | |
'an airy spirit conjured from the elements, | 0:00:42 | 0:00:46 | |
'a storm which stops as mysteriously as it began. | 0:00:46 | 0:00:49 | |
'It sounds like a work of science fiction, | 0:00:51 | 0:00:54 | |
'yet it comes from the imagination of a man writing 400 years ago.' | 0:00:54 | 0:00:57 | |
It's the last complete play by William Shakespeare. | 0:00:59 | 0:01:03 | |
It's The Tempest. | 0:01:03 | 0:01:05 | |
'I directed The Tempest with Ralph Fiennes in the leading role in 2011. | 0:01:17 | 0:01:23 | |
'It was a play I'd always wanted to do. | 0:01:23 | 0:01:27 | |
'Alas, nothing of our work was filmed, | 0:01:27 | 0:01:29 | |
'but what still intrigues me about this play | 0:01:29 | 0:01:32 | |
'is what it tells us about Shakespeare himself. | 0:01:32 | 0:01:35 | |
'It's more ambitious than anything he'd written before, | 0:01:35 | 0:01:38 | |
'more radical in the ideas it explores | 0:01:38 | 0:01:40 | |
'and more imaginative in the kind of staging it demands. | 0:01:40 | 0:01:44 | |
'And yet, he was in his latter years when he set himself this challenge.' | 0:01:44 | 0:01:48 | |
Astonishingly, what he decides to do | 0:01:52 | 0:01:56 | |
at the end of his writing lifetime is an experiment. | 0:01:56 | 0:02:00 | |
This is an experimental play that requires people to fly, | 0:02:00 | 0:02:05 | |
spirits to emerge and shape-shift, | 0:02:05 | 0:02:08 | |
apparitions, disappearing acts. | 0:02:08 | 0:02:11 | |
It's all experiment. | 0:02:11 | 0:02:13 | |
'This was his last complete play. | 0:02:13 | 0:02:16 | |
'I think it's also one of his most personal, almost autobiographical. | 0:02:16 | 0:02:22 | |
'It's even possible that Shakespeare, who was also an actor, | 0:02:22 | 0:02:25 | |
'could have played the leading role himself.' | 0:02:25 | 0:02:30 | |
Shakespeare would have been 50 at the point of this play. | 0:02:30 | 0:02:34 | |
Prospero's 50. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:38 | |
Did he play Prospero? Why not? | 0:02:38 | 0:02:41 | |
I mean, is it not only his last play, but his last performance? | 0:02:43 | 0:02:49 | |
'Different film versions of the play go back to the very earliest | 0:02:53 | 0:02:56 | |
'attempt in 1911, but at its core, | 0:02:56 | 0:02:59 | |
'The Tempest is the story of one man and a choice he must make. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:03 | |
'The man is Prospero, Duke of Milan, | 0:03:03 | 0:03:06 | |
'who's been betrayed by his brother, | 0:03:06 | 0:03:09 | |
'cast away on a boat with his tiny daughter, Miranda.' | 0:03:09 | 0:03:12 | |
That's extraordinary! | 0:03:14 | 0:03:15 | |
'Left to their fate, they survive, | 0:03:15 | 0:03:19 | |
'marooned on a deserted island for 12 years. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:23 | |
'Prospero is no ordinary man. | 0:03:23 | 0:03:26 | |
'He's a Magus, a magician who commands spirits and the elements.' | 0:03:26 | 0:03:31 | |
Special effects! | 0:03:32 | 0:03:34 | |
'Through this magic, his art, | 0:03:34 | 0:03:37 | |
'he has discovered that his treacherous brother | 0:03:37 | 0:03:39 | |
'and co-conspirators will pass his island on their ship.' | 0:03:39 | 0:03:43 | |
Here are the villains. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:45 | |
'He conjures up a tempest that hurls his enemies onto his shore. | 0:03:45 | 0:03:51 | |
'But what will he do with them? | 0:03:51 | 0:03:52 | |
'What will happen when his past and present lives collide? | 0:03:52 | 0:03:59 | |
'This play will ask huge questions. | 0:03:59 | 0:04:02 | |
'How do we become the people we are? | 0:04:02 | 0:04:06 | |
'What does it mean to be human? | 0:04:06 | 0:04:08 | |
'And what happens when, for the first time, we fall in love? | 0:04:08 | 0:04:12 | |
'While the play tackles all of these issues, | 0:04:13 | 0:04:16 | |
'a central theme is the relationship between a father and his daughter, | 0:04:16 | 0:04:21 | |
'alone together for 12 years.' | 0:04:21 | 0:04:24 | |
I think the relationship between Prospero and Miranda | 0:04:26 | 0:04:29 | |
is one of the great interests and sort of puzzles of the play, | 0:04:29 | 0:04:32 | |
because, really, the action kind of rests on it. | 0:04:32 | 0:04:34 | |
I have done nothing | 0:04:34 | 0:04:38 | |
But in care of thee. | 0:04:38 | 0:04:40 | |
'There's obviously a lot of love there. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:41 | |
'It's a very, very intimate relationship, | 0:04:41 | 0:04:43 | |
'but also, from Prospero's side, | 0:04:43 | 0:04:45 | |
'there's a real sense of controlling...' | 0:04:45 | 0:04:47 | |
of her and controlling of her personality | 0:04:47 | 0:04:50 | |
and wanting her to do certain things and not do other things. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:53 | |
And so, immediately, there's a kind of tension there. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:55 | |
Lend thy hand, | 0:04:55 | 0:04:57 | |
And pluck my magic garment from me. | 0:04:57 | 0:04:59 | |
'Since the age of three, | 0:05:00 | 0:05:02 | |
'her father has been the only person in her life.' | 0:05:02 | 0:05:06 | |
'This play is a paternal fantasy | 0:05:06 | 0:05:09 | |
'about the daughter that I could raise...' | 0:05:09 | 0:05:11 | |
if I had her to myself, | 0:05:11 | 0:05:13 | |
if I didn't have mothers coddling her | 0:05:13 | 0:05:15 | |
and I didn't have other people getting in the way | 0:05:15 | 0:05:18 | |
of the person that she could become if I were to shape her. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:22 | |
Lie there, | 0:05:22 | 0:05:25 | |
My art. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:26 | |
'Controlling he frequently is, | 0:05:26 | 0:05:29 | |
'but Prospero's clearly devoted to his daughter.' | 0:05:29 | 0:05:32 | |
He says, kind of, "You saved my life because YOU were in the boat, | 0:05:32 | 0:05:37 | |
"then I felt there was something worth living for." | 0:05:37 | 0:05:42 | |
It's very, very potent between the two of them. | 0:05:42 | 0:05:46 | |
'It's an arresting premise, | 0:05:47 | 0:05:49 | |
'a father and a daughter surviving a nightmare journey, | 0:05:49 | 0:05:53 | |
'drifting in an open boat before finally reaching an island. | 0:05:53 | 0:05:58 | |
'Shakespeare has invented a story of people...' | 0:05:58 | 0:06:02 | |
surviving, marooned on a bare island. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:06 | |
'They don't really know where they are.' | 0:06:06 | 0:06:08 | |
This is 150 years ahead of Robinson Crusoe. | 0:06:10 | 0:06:13 | |
'So where did Shakespeare get this idea from? | 0:06:14 | 0:06:17 | |
'We know he had access to the London bookstalls | 0:06:18 | 0:06:21 | |
'and we know that, like screenwriters today, | 0:06:21 | 0:06:23 | |
'Shakespeare re-worked and embellished existing plots. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:27 | |
'But uniquely, for this play, there was no existing fictional story. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:33 | |
'It's possible that Shakespeare was influenced by a real event.' | 0:06:34 | 0:06:37 | |
"Chapter VI. A true repertory of the wracke | 0:06:39 | 0:06:45 | |
"and redemption of Sir Thomas Gates Knight, | 0:06:45 | 0:06:48 | |
"upon and from the Ilands of the Bermudas." | 0:06:48 | 0:06:52 | |
'It's quite clear...' | 0:06:52 | 0:06:54 | |
that one of the most important events that Shakespeare | 0:06:54 | 0:06:56 | |
almost certainly must be drawing on | 0:06:56 | 0:06:59 | |
is the expedition of a ship called the Sea Venture | 0:06:59 | 0:07:04 | |
that sets out for the Americas in the summer of 1609. | 0:07:04 | 0:07:08 | |
Around 500 people are on this boat, and it disappears. | 0:07:08 | 0:07:13 | |
"I. A most dreadful Tempest." | 0:07:13 | 0:07:17 | |
We know it's actually stranded in Bermuda, | 0:07:17 | 0:07:21 | |
but from the contemporary perspective, this is a disaster. | 0:07:21 | 0:07:24 | |
"So huge a sea broke upon the poope and quarter upon us | 0:07:24 | 0:07:29 | |
"as it covered our ship from stern to stem | 0:07:29 | 0:07:33 | |
"as it rushed and carried the Helm-man from the helme | 0:07:33 | 0:07:37 | |
"and wrested the whipstaff out of his hand | 0:07:37 | 0:07:39 | |
"and all us about him on our faces." | 0:07:39 | 0:07:41 | |
There are many accounts - William Strachey is the famous account | 0:07:41 | 0:07:47 | |
that Shakespeare may have had access to - | 0:07:47 | 0:07:49 | |
but there are any number of other little pamphlets that report | 0:07:49 | 0:07:52 | |
this drastic and difficult expedition. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:55 | |
"Sea breakes in. Leak cannot be found which cannot but be found. | 0:07:55 | 0:08:02 | |
"The waters still increasing, we were now sinking." | 0:08:02 | 0:08:07 | |
These sorts of episodes are absolutely embraced | 0:08:07 | 0:08:11 | |
by the reading public in early 17th-century England. | 0:08:11 | 0:08:14 | |
This sort of voyage of discovery, | 0:08:14 | 0:08:17 | |
these abilities to imagine yourself a little person | 0:08:17 | 0:08:21 | |
perhaps in Southwark imagining themselves | 0:08:21 | 0:08:24 | |
in the Isle of Bermudas or the Indies or in the Americas. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:26 | |
"Utter darkness. Their labour for life | 0:08:26 | 0:08:31 | |
"three dayes and foure nights." | 0:08:31 | 0:08:34 | |
'And, just as with Shakespeare's story, | 0:08:34 | 0:08:37 | |
'all the shipwrecked passengers survived.' | 0:08:37 | 0:08:40 | |
So then, a year later, or almost a year later, in May 1610, | 0:08:40 | 0:08:47 | |
the wrecked people have managed to create their own boat | 0:08:47 | 0:08:50 | |
and they arrive in Jamestown. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:52 | |
It seems to me that it's just too much of a historical coincidence | 0:08:52 | 0:08:57 | |
that these same themes of individuals being shipwrecked | 0:08:57 | 0:09:02 | |
on an island in the middle of nowhere, | 0:09:02 | 0:09:04 | |
who somehow eventually are recovered and go on their way... | 0:09:04 | 0:09:07 | |
it's too much of a coincidence not to have been used by Shakespeare. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:11 | |
'So Shakespeare may have been influenced by that real event, | 0:09:14 | 0:09:17 | |
'but how was he going to get his Magus | 0:09:17 | 0:09:21 | |
'to create a shipwreck on stage? | 0:09:21 | 0:09:23 | |
'Shakespeare needed a way of manipulating | 0:09:26 | 0:09:29 | |
'what his audience were seeing and hearing. | 0:09:29 | 0:09:32 | |
'Finding new ways of playing with light and illusion. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:36 | |
'But his theatre, the Globe, was open to the sky - hardly ideal. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:42 | |
'Flying spirits would need be suspended from a ceiling, | 0:09:42 | 0:09:45 | |
'disappearing acts needed darkness. | 0:09:45 | 0:09:47 | |
'He needed a theatre with a roof where they could act by candlelight. | 0:09:50 | 0:09:54 | |
'At the Globe today, they still recognise that problem.' | 0:09:54 | 0:09:57 | |
Clearly, a lot of the atmosphere of this magic world of the play | 0:09:59 | 0:10:04 | |
would have been so much more potent in an interior candlelit space | 0:10:04 | 0:10:09 | |
than in an open-air space where you would see it in the afternoon. | 0:10:09 | 0:10:13 | |
Candlelight is a massive game changer. | 0:10:13 | 0:10:16 | |
It makes light sources unspeakably powerful. | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
If you walk onto the Globe stage with a lantern, you look like | 0:10:19 | 0:10:22 | |
an idiot, cos it's meaningless. If you come into a darkened room | 0:10:22 | 0:10:25 | |
with a lantern, and that's the only light source in the room, | 0:10:25 | 0:10:28 | |
you're a very powerful presence. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:31 | |
'So Shakespeare and his company | 0:10:31 | 0:10:33 | |
'took over an existing indoor theatre, the Blackfriars. | 0:10:33 | 0:10:38 | |
'No-one knows exactly what it looked like. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:41 | |
'But across the Atlantic, a reconstruction has been created.' | 0:10:41 | 0:10:44 | |
'In Staunton, Virginia, they're rehearsing | 0:10:48 | 0:10:52 | |
'the opening scene of The Tempest. | 0:10:52 | 0:10:55 | |
'The shipwreck.' | 0:10:55 | 0:10:56 | |
CRASHING AND RATTLING | 0:10:56 | 0:10:59 | |
Boatswain! | 0:10:59 | 0:11:01 | |
Here, master. What cheer? | 0:11:01 | 0:11:03 | |
Good. Speak to the mariners. | 0:11:03 | 0:11:04 | |
Heigh, my hearts! Cheerly, my hearts! Yare! | 0:11:04 | 0:11:08 | |
'This is a daytime rehearsal with the house lights on, | 0:11:08 | 0:11:10 | |
'but it reveals another demand of the play... | 0:11:10 | 0:11:14 | |
'dramatic sound effects.' | 0:11:14 | 0:11:16 | |
RATTLING | 0:11:16 | 0:11:19 | |
RUSTLING | 0:11:19 | 0:11:21 | |
The beginning of The Tempest has this huge storm. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:25 | |
So trying to figure out how Shakespeare might have staged it | 0:11:25 | 0:11:28 | |
when he didn't have smoke machines, | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
he didn't have the special effects that we have in the 21st century, | 0:11:31 | 0:11:35 | |
so trying to figure out how we can aurally create | 0:11:35 | 0:11:39 | |
the idea of a big huge storm is what we were after. | 0:11:39 | 0:11:44 | |
We've got all of these acoustic instruments | 0:11:44 | 0:11:48 | |
that could have been something like what Shakespeare had, | 0:11:48 | 0:11:52 | |
because he had the same issue that we did. | 0:11:52 | 0:11:54 | |
How do you get a huge storm and a shipwreck | 0:11:54 | 0:11:57 | |
in the Blackfriars playhouse? | 0:11:57 | 0:12:00 | |
SHOUTING AND COMMOTION | 0:12:00 | 0:12:03 | |
'It's like the beginning of a film.' | 0:12:03 | 0:12:06 | |
The Tempest as a play takes you by the throat immediately. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:09 | |
It opens in the middle of this storm, we're on a ship. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:13 | |
Hence! What cares these roarers for the name of King? To cabin! | 0:12:13 | 0:12:17 | |
'The ship is going down, there are sailors running across the stage, | 0:12:17 | 0:12:20 | |
'the guests on the ship running the other way.' | 0:12:20 | 0:12:22 | |
No-one knows what's going on. | 0:12:22 | 0:12:24 | |
'At this stage, not even the audience knows what's really going on, | 0:12:25 | 0:12:29 | |
'because, in fact, nothing is what it seems.' | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
Take in the topsail! | 0:12:34 | 0:12:36 | |
'These elements of high drama and magic | 0:12:36 | 0:12:40 | |
'have inspired many different film versions, | 0:12:40 | 0:12:43 | |
'but at the centre of every Tempest is this strange Magus character, | 0:12:43 | 0:12:47 | |
'the betrayed duke, Prospero. | 0:12:47 | 0:12:50 | |
'He's created the storm, he's stage-managing all the action. | 0:12:50 | 0:12:53 | |
'No-one on the ship will be harmed, but they, of course, don't know that | 0:12:53 | 0:12:57 | |
'and they're terrified.' | 0:12:57 | 0:13:00 | |
We are in the company of a great magician, conjuror, alchemist | 0:13:00 | 0:13:04 | |
who can control the elements | 0:13:04 | 0:13:06 | |
and indeed, almost control people's destinies. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:10 | |
Somebody who seems to be playing at God. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:13 | |
Therefore, he's somebody to be feared. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:18 | |
'Do we trust Prospero? I don't know.' | 0:13:18 | 0:13:22 | |
He's conjured up this storm from nothing. He's made it go away again. | 0:13:22 | 0:13:25 | |
He's actually brought the ship safely into harbour | 0:13:25 | 0:13:29 | |
and he's deposited its passengers very carefully | 0:13:29 | 0:13:31 | |
in different parts of the island, and it's clear | 0:13:31 | 0:13:34 | |
that Prospero is setting this up | 0:13:34 | 0:13:35 | |
because he wants to control this plot. | 0:13:35 | 0:13:37 | |
He's going to bring them together when he wants them to be together. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:41 | |
'And we don't really know what is going to result from that.' | 0:13:41 | 0:13:45 | |
'He's brought his enemies to the same island | 0:13:46 | 0:13:49 | |
'on which he struggled ashore. They are in his power. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:53 | |
'The play hinges on a moral question. What will he decide to do with them?' | 0:13:53 | 0:13:58 | |
Prospero begins The Tempest as somebody who is...metaphorically, | 0:14:00 | 0:14:04 | |
as well as literally, on an island. He's stuck with himself, | 0:14:04 | 0:14:07 | |
and all that he's had to say to himself for years is, | 0:14:07 | 0:14:11 | |
"I was treated badly. I was treated badly." | 0:14:11 | 0:14:14 | |
'Prospero is very human because he wants' | 0:14:14 | 0:14:18 | |
to take revenge and he wants it to be extreme. | 0:14:18 | 0:14:23 | |
He really wants to hurt the people who have hurt him. | 0:14:23 | 0:14:26 | |
Prospero is a profoundly angry, bitter, enraged person, | 0:14:27 | 0:14:35 | |
enraged, with absolute reason, | 0:14:35 | 0:14:40 | |
absolutely rightfully enraged. | 0:14:40 | 0:14:43 | |
'But definitely with a burning rage inside of his belly.' | 0:14:43 | 0:14:48 | |
'Prospero doesn't ever spell out the intentions he has.' | 0:14:49 | 0:14:53 | |
One of the main questions of this play is, | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
will Prospero be capable of forgiveness? | 0:14:56 | 0:15:01 | |
If by your art, my dearest father, you would put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. | 0:15:08 | 0:15:14 | |
'Having depicted the angry Magus, the play then reveals Prospero, the reassuring father. | 0:15:14 | 0:15:22 | |
'He tells his daughter for the first time how they became castaways.' | 0:15:22 | 0:15:26 | |
How came we ashore? | 0:15:26 | 0:15:29 | |
By providence divine. Some food we had, some fresh water, | 0:15:29 | 0:15:33 | |
a noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo, out of his charity, | 0:15:33 | 0:15:37 | |
being then appointed master of this design, did give us. | 0:15:37 | 0:15:40 | |
From the first, Prospero's words to Miranda | 0:15:40 | 0:15:43 | |
are some of the tenderest in the play. | 0:15:43 | 0:15:44 | |
'He talks about his daughter as "dear", he tells her that she saved his life. | 0:15:44 | 0:15:49 | |
'He's trying to instruct her about the world she's about to enter that she has no experience in.' | 0:15:49 | 0:15:53 | |
And he's worried about it. She's 15, and he's worried about it. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:56 | |
Know thus far forth, by accident most strange, | 0:15:56 | 0:16:01 | |
bountiful fortune now, my dear lady, hath my enemies brought to this shore. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:07 | |
He is my teacher. I have very few memories before this place. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:11 | |
It's just the given, it's the given circumstances. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:14 | |
'I know that my father talks to spirits and that he runs this storm and I know he's probably' | 0:16:14 | 0:16:19 | |
got a purpose for these things he's doing, | 0:16:19 | 0:16:22 | |
but I feel that it's just a given that I understand that he's got this magic | 0:16:22 | 0:16:26 | |
and he's got this ability to talk to the spirits. | 0:16:26 | 0:16:29 | |
'Prospero and Miranda are not completely alone. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:36 | |
'Their fellow inhabitant is among Shakespeare's strangest characters. | 0:16:38 | 0:16:42 | |
'Caliban, a creature possibly inspired by the talk in Shakespeare's local tavern. | 0:16:42 | 0:16:50 | |
'The Globe Theatre was by the river.' | 0:16:50 | 0:16:53 | |
Sailors returning from distant parts would of course exaggerate | 0:16:54 | 0:17:00 | |
about the weird and wonderful creatures that they had seen. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:03 | |
But strange creatures - half man, half animal - were thought to exist, | 0:17:03 | 0:17:10 | |
and, indeed, drawings were made of them | 0:17:10 | 0:17:13 | |
and those drawings were printed. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:16 | |
'Caliban has always been a controversial character. | 0:17:16 | 0:17:20 | |
'His existence provokes uncomfortable questions.' | 0:17:20 | 0:17:23 | |
I want to try something. Really attack... | 0:17:25 | 0:17:28 | |
'The Tempest is part of the RSC's new season. | 0:17:31 | 0:17:34 | |
'In rehearsal, they're exploring the first time Caliban is seen with Prospero.' | 0:17:34 | 0:17:40 | |
OK, let's go from waking Emily up. | 0:17:40 | 0:17:42 | |
'Something has happened that has resulted in Prospero enslaving Caliban.' | 0:17:42 | 0:17:47 | |
Slave! Caliban! | 0:17:47 | 0:17:50 | |
Thou earth, thou... | 0:17:53 | 0:17:55 | |
Speak! | 0:17:55 | 0:17:57 | |
Caliban is a previous inhabitant of the island. | 0:17:57 | 0:18:00 | |
He actually was here before Prospero. | 0:18:00 | 0:18:03 | |
I think that's significant to their relationship. | 0:18:03 | 0:18:05 | |
His mother, Sycorax, was a witch | 0:18:05 | 0:18:08 | |
and she has died, leaving Caliban alone on the island. | 0:18:08 | 0:18:11 | |
'Prospero has arrived on the island, and Prospero and Caliban initially were friends,' | 0:18:11 | 0:18:16 | |
then a terrible event has taken place, a cataclysmic event. | 0:18:16 | 0:18:20 | |
Poisonous slave. | 0:18:20 | 0:18:23 | |
'The relationship is now full of anger.' | 0:18:23 | 0:18:25 | |
Come forth! | 0:18:25 | 0:18:27 | |
As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed with raven's feather | 0:18:27 | 0:18:33 | |
from unwholesome fen, drop on you both! | 0:18:33 | 0:18:39 | |
A south-west blow on ye and blister you all o'er. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:45 | |
'Each new production has to decide what Prospero feels about Caliban.' | 0:18:45 | 0:18:51 | |
Tonight thou shalt have cramps. | 0:18:51 | 0:18:53 | |
'I talked to the unusually youthful Prospero, Jonathan Slinger.' | 0:18:53 | 0:18:57 | |
Your Prospero, does he think of Caliban as his servant, | 0:18:59 | 0:19:03 | |
as his slave? Does he think of him as an animal? | 0:19:03 | 0:19:08 | |
I think they have been on a real journey, | 0:19:08 | 0:19:10 | |
their relationship has been on an incredible journey, | 0:19:10 | 0:19:14 | |
which is articulated beautifully actually by Caliban himself, | 0:19:14 | 0:19:20 | |
who talks about Prospero arriving and treating him very well, | 0:19:20 | 0:19:24 | |
very nicely, giving him food. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:26 | |
When thou cam'st first, thou strok'st me and made much of me, | 0:19:26 | 0:19:32 | |
would give me water with berries in't. | 0:19:32 | 0:19:36 | |
And then I loved thee. | 0:19:37 | 0:19:40 | |
'He then betrayed me horribly' | 0:19:41 | 0:19:44 | |
by trying to rape my daughter. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:48 | |
And now he is very much my slave. | 0:19:48 | 0:19:52 | |
I have used thee, filth as thou art, | 0:19:52 | 0:19:58 | |
with humane care and lodged thee in my own cell | 0:19:58 | 0:20:03 | |
till thou did seek to violate the honour of my child! | 0:20:03 | 0:20:08 | |
I don't think of Caliban as an animal. He is | 0:20:08 | 0:20:11 | |
a being that I have had enormous love and respect for in the past, | 0:20:11 | 0:20:16 | |
but no longer, and I am punishing him terribly. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:20 | |
'Quite where our sympathies should lie is complicated by the idea of whose island is it anyway?' | 0:20:23 | 0:20:29 | |
Certainly, Caliban is enslaved against his will. | 0:20:30 | 0:20:36 | |
And certainly, Prospero has come to an island where he himself | 0:20:36 | 0:20:41 | |
is not native born and is taking it over and becoming its ruler. | 0:20:41 | 0:20:45 | |
So the structure is a colonial structure. | 0:20:45 | 0:20:48 | |
'In our century, it's seems obvious to link Caliban and colonialism, | 0:20:50 | 0:20:55 | |
'but is that what Shakespeare had in mind? | 0:20:55 | 0:20:57 | |
'The play is about power, freedom and slavery, | 0:20:57 | 0:21:01 | |
'but that's not the same as empire. | 0:21:01 | 0:21:04 | |
'It would help to get a clearer idea of where Shakespeare intended his island to be.' | 0:21:04 | 0:21:08 | |
So this, for late 16th, early 17th century Englishman, | 0:21:10 | 0:21:14 | |
is what world looks like. | 0:21:14 | 0:21:16 | |
And what you can see is obviously... this looks quite modern. | 0:21:16 | 0:21:19 | |
There you can see Britain, you can see the Mediterranean very clearly here. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:24 | |
So even by this time, by the very early 17th century, | 0:21:24 | 0:21:27 | |
you have quite a comprehensive world picture. | 0:21:27 | 0:21:31 | |
Imagery like this would be known or would it be very specialist? | 0:21:31 | 0:21:34 | |
No, it would have been known. | 0:21:34 | 0:21:37 | |
They would have been able to situate themselves within this world. | 0:21:37 | 0:21:39 | |
It has to be said, doesn't it, that the bulk of the references | 0:21:39 | 0:21:44 | |
in the play are to this Mediterranean world? | 0:21:44 | 0:21:47 | |
I mean, Caliban was the son of Sycorax, the witch of Algiers, | 0:21:47 | 0:21:52 | |
and there isn't a suggestion in the play that we're dealing with | 0:21:52 | 0:21:56 | |
what came to be known as the New World? | 0:21:56 | 0:21:59 | |
No, because look at this, look at this map. If you look at North America and South America, | 0:21:59 | 0:22:03 | |
this is quite approximate. This is a sort of weird, | 0:22:03 | 0:22:07 | |
triangulated wedge of cheese for South America. | 0:22:07 | 0:22:09 | |
North America pushed far too far to the west. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:13 | |
Here it gets hazy, so those references to the New World | 0:22:13 | 0:22:17 | |
are about the fact that this new West world is something coming into shape. | 0:22:17 | 0:22:22 | |
Certainly for the English. OK, Columbus discovers it in 1492, | 0:22:22 | 0:22:26 | |
but the English have been nowhere in that process. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:29 | |
Only from the turn of the 17th century when they settle in Virginia, | 0:22:29 | 0:22:33 | |
what the English audience knows is this Mediterranean world which is what the play's describing. | 0:22:33 | 0:22:38 | |
'But in trying to give the play more contemporary relevance, | 0:22:38 | 0:22:42 | |
'productions often make the legacy of European colonialism the central theme of this 17th-century play.' | 0:22:42 | 0:22:49 | |
The last 20 or 30 years, there's been a post-colonialism take on the play, | 0:22:49 | 0:22:54 | |
to say, "This is all about colonisation," | 0:22:54 | 0:22:56 | |
so everybody has therefore magnified those New World, American dimensions. | 0:22:56 | 0:23:02 | |
Indeed, the problem with the colonial take | 0:23:02 | 0:23:06 | |
is that of course Prospero becomes just another white colonialist | 0:23:06 | 0:23:11 | |
who has taken over somebody's country, and that isn't his story. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:15 | |
I mean, he's been cast adrift in a boat, and this island is his survival. | 0:23:15 | 0:23:21 | |
And he discovers Caliban, and Caliban is not native to that island. | 0:23:21 | 0:23:24 | |
Absolutely. I think that the more interesting aspect of the play is, | 0:23:24 | 0:23:28 | |
nobody is native to the island. | 0:23:28 | 0:23:31 | |
The island has never been first discovered, | 0:23:31 | 0:23:33 | |
there's always been somebody there before, | 0:23:33 | 0:23:35 | |
because before Caliban, there was Sycorax. | 0:23:35 | 0:23:37 | |
We know from the text that this island | 0:23:45 | 0:23:48 | |
has green pasture, brown firs, | 0:23:48 | 0:23:52 | |
trees, a marsh and yellow sands. | 0:23:52 | 0:23:57 | |
But is it bare? Is it bleak? Is it beautiful? | 0:23:57 | 0:24:02 | |
'I think Shakespeare leaves this to our imagination, | 0:24:02 | 0:24:06 | |
'so we can create our own magical world, and magical it must be. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:12 | |
'Prospero has a spirit servant, Ariel. | 0:24:13 | 0:24:17 | |
'Using his magic art, he released Ariel from a tree, | 0:24:17 | 0:24:21 | |
'in which he'd been imprisoned by Caliban's mother, a witch. | 0:24:21 | 0:24:24 | |
'Ariel belongs to the elements.' | 0:24:24 | 0:24:27 | |
There's Caliban, who represents something very close to the earth, | 0:24:30 | 0:24:34 | |
something visceral and physical. | 0:24:34 | 0:24:36 | |
Then there's Ariel, who represents all the opposite things of that, | 0:24:36 | 0:24:41 | |
the spirit, something sacred and something magical, | 0:24:41 | 0:24:44 | |
something other-worldly. | 0:24:44 | 0:24:47 | |
And human beings are pulled between those poles. | 0:24:47 | 0:24:51 | |
'The relationship between Prospero and his spirit is complex, | 0:24:52 | 0:24:56 | |
'as Prospero has promised him freedom, but only after Ariel has helped him fulfil his plan.' | 0:24:56 | 0:25:03 | |
My liberty! | 0:25:04 | 0:25:06 | |
Ariel, throughout the play, from the first moment we see him, really, | 0:25:06 | 0:25:11 | |
is saying to Prospero, | 0:25:11 | 0:25:13 | |
"When am I going to be free? When are you going to let me go? | 0:25:13 | 0:25:16 | |
"You promised my that if I sorted out this storm, you would free me." | 0:25:16 | 0:25:21 | |
Thou didst promise to bate me a full year. | 0:25:21 | 0:25:24 | |
Ariel is definitely another slave. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:28 | |
'Caliban's one, and Ariel's another.' | 0:25:28 | 0:25:30 | |
I thank thee, master. | 0:25:30 | 0:25:33 | |
But I suppose there is this sort of intimacy and love there | 0:25:33 | 0:25:36 | |
for the person who is his captor. | 0:25:36 | 0:25:39 | |
'There's something wonderfully mischievous and accessible about Ariel. | 0:25:39 | 0:25:45 | |
'He so wants to be praised' | 0:25:45 | 0:25:49 | |
and so overjoyed when he IS complimented. | 0:25:49 | 0:25:53 | |
'The Magus is about to call on Ariel for a very different part of his shipwreck plan. | 0:25:56 | 0:26:02 | |
'Prospero has brought his enemies ashore | 0:26:04 | 0:26:07 | |
'not only to settle an old score, | 0:26:07 | 0:26:09 | |
'but to secure a new future for his daughter. | 0:26:09 | 0:26:13 | |
'One of the survivors is Ferdinand, the son of the King of Naples. | 0:26:15 | 0:26:19 | |
'Using an enchanted song, Ariel must deliver this young man into the presence of Miranda.' | 0:26:19 | 0:26:25 | |
Where should this music be? | 0:26:25 | 0:26:28 | |
I' the air or the earth? | 0:26:28 | 0:26:31 | |
'It's the first young man she's ever seen.' | 0:26:32 | 0:26:35 | |
What is it, a spirit? | 0:26:35 | 0:26:38 | |
No, wench, this gallant that thou see'st was in the wreck. | 0:26:38 | 0:26:41 | |
Sir, it carries a brave form. | 0:26:41 | 0:26:43 | |
He can put Ferdinand and Miranda together, but he can't make them fall in love. | 0:26:43 | 0:26:48 | |
That's going to happen or it's not gonna happen. | 0:26:48 | 0:26:51 | |
I might call him a thing divine. | 0:26:51 | 0:26:56 | |
For nothing natural I ever saw so noble. | 0:26:56 | 0:26:59 | |
We call it love at first sight. But it's not that deep love, | 0:26:59 | 0:27:02 | |
it's a tickle, it's, um... it's sexual intrigue, | 0:27:02 | 0:27:07 | |
it's a sexual interest that has never existed, I believe, in her body. | 0:27:07 | 0:27:10 | |
O you wonder, if you be maid or no? | 0:27:10 | 0:27:13 | |
-No wonder, sir, but certainly a maid. -My language! Heavens! | 0:27:13 | 0:27:18 | |
'But then suddenly Prospero interrupts.' | 0:27:18 | 0:27:21 | |
A word, good sir. I fear you've done yourself some wrong. A word. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:25 | |
Why speaks my father so ungently? | 0:27:25 | 0:27:27 | |
..Virgin and your affection not gone forth. | 0:27:27 | 0:27:29 | |
'Prospero has his reservations about Ferdinand...' | 0:27:29 | 0:27:32 | |
Soft, sir, one word more. | 0:27:32 | 0:27:35 | |
'..since, in the past, the prince has been a bit of a playboy.' | 0:27:35 | 0:27:39 | |
Young Ferdinand has been round the block with young ladies various, | 0:27:39 | 0:27:43 | |
and Prospero is anxious | 0:27:43 | 0:27:49 | |
that the relationship between him and his daughter | 0:27:49 | 0:27:53 | |
should be not just a thing of physical attraction. | 0:27:53 | 0:27:56 | |
What he wants is a meeting of minds. | 0:27:56 | 0:27:59 | |
One word more, I charge thee that thou attend me! | 0:27:59 | 0:28:02 | |
Thou didst here usurp the name thou ows't not. | 0:28:02 | 0:28:04 | |
And has put thy self upon this island as a spy. | 0:28:04 | 0:28:06 | |
-To win it, from me, the Lord on't. -No, as I am a man. -There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:12 | |
Follow me. Speak not you for him. Come! | 0:28:12 | 0:28:14 | |
Prospero is obviously struggling with himself, so... | 0:28:14 | 0:28:17 | |
At the same time he's trying to control the encounter, | 0:28:17 | 0:28:19 | |
he wants it to go a certain way, | 0:28:19 | 0:28:21 | |
but doesn't quite want it to happen just yet, | 0:28:21 | 0:28:23 | |
or maybe changes his mind about what he wants to happen. | 0:28:23 | 0:28:25 | |
And all of these things Shakespeare is dramatising. | 0:28:25 | 0:28:28 | |
'Prospero is worried that if the teenage girl is too easily won, Ferdinand won't value her. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:36 | |
'But he can come across as the archetypal competitive male. | 0:28:36 | 0:28:40 | |
'That dynamic changes if Prospero is played by a woman. | 0:28:42 | 0:28:45 | |
'In a new film, Helen Mirren plays the part.' | 0:28:45 | 0:28:49 | |
This gallant which thou see'st was in the wreck. | 0:28:50 | 0:28:53 | |
I might call him a thing divine. | 0:28:53 | 0:28:55 | |
For nothing natural I ever saw so noble. | 0:28:55 | 0:28:58 | |
'I felt that it was a very strong addition.' | 0:28:58 | 0:29:03 | |
The play doesn't change, | 0:29:03 | 0:29:04 | |
but the perception in the audience's mind changes, | 0:29:04 | 0:29:08 | |
watching a woman doing, saying these things. | 0:29:08 | 0:29:11 | |
We are both in either's powers. | 0:29:11 | 0:29:13 | |
But this swift business, I must uneasy make, | 0:29:15 | 0:29:17 | |
lest too light winning make the prize light. | 0:29:17 | 0:29:20 | |
It's a fantastically different reaction that this Prospero has, | 0:29:20 | 0:29:26 | |
'because there's no testosterone.' | 0:29:26 | 0:29:28 | |
When a young man comes calling for the daughter of Prospero, | 0:29:28 | 0:29:31 | |
there's a lot of competition going on. | 0:29:31 | 0:29:33 | |
Here, with Prospera, it's much more of a tigress protecting her cub. | 0:29:33 | 0:29:39 | |
She knows exactly what can happen | 0:29:39 | 0:29:42 | |
with this young man if he's not true. | 0:29:42 | 0:29:45 | |
Thou thinkst there is no more such shapes as he | 0:29:45 | 0:29:47 | |
having seen but him and Caliban. | 0:29:47 | 0:29:50 | |
Foolish child! | 0:29:50 | 0:29:52 | |
To the most of men, this is a Caliban, and they to him are angels. | 0:29:52 | 0:29:55 | |
My affections are then most humble. | 0:29:55 | 0:29:57 | |
I have no ambitions to see a goodlier man. | 0:29:57 | 0:29:59 | |
'It's still a parent-child relationship, | 0:29:59 | 0:30:02 | |
'so that is the constant, but, yes,' | 0:30:02 | 0:30:05 | |
it lost that slightly... I thought to me | 0:30:05 | 0:30:08 | |
slightly patriarchal, controlling thing that I always felt | 0:30:08 | 0:30:14 | |
when it's played by a man. | 0:30:14 | 0:30:16 | |
'Whenever you see a work by Shakespeare, | 0:30:19 | 0:30:22 | |
'it's natural to wonder how much of it comes from his life experience. | 0:30:22 | 0:30:26 | |
'But The Tempest provokes more of these speculations | 0:30:26 | 0:30:30 | |
'than any other of his plays. | 0:30:30 | 0:30:32 | |
'It's April the 23rd, | 0:30:33 | 0:30:36 | |
'and Shakespeare's birthday is being celebrated in Stratford-upon-Avon. | 0:30:36 | 0:30:40 | |
'Now he's world famous, but even during his lifetime, | 0:30:40 | 0:30:44 | |
'he was known in his home town as a successful playwright, | 0:30:44 | 0:30:48 | |
'with his own coat-of-arms, a family and a reputation to protect. | 0:30:48 | 0:30:54 | |
'It's not impossible that Prospero's fears were rather close to his own.' | 0:30:54 | 0:30:58 | |
All writers draw on their experience as they write plays. | 0:30:59 | 0:31:03 | |
And we know that, at the time Shakespeare is writing The Tempest, | 0:31:03 | 0:31:08 | |
he's a little bit worried about one of his daughters, Judith, | 0:31:08 | 0:31:12 | |
who is involved with a man who may not be quite reliable. | 0:31:12 | 0:31:17 | |
And, at some level, those paternal anxieties are part of the play. | 0:31:17 | 0:31:23 | |
'The man his daughter was intent on marrying | 0:31:23 | 0:31:27 | |
'had made another woman pregnant.' | 0:31:27 | 0:31:30 | |
Inevitably, things that happen in your life inform your work. | 0:31:30 | 0:31:35 | |
So there is that concern with actually testing a husband | 0:31:35 | 0:31:42 | |
to check that they are suitable, before a daughter marries them, | 0:31:42 | 0:31:46 | |
which, of course, is played out in The Tempest. | 0:31:46 | 0:31:49 | |
'We can't be sure of this, of course, but Shakespeare, the experimental dramatist, | 0:31:53 | 0:31:58 | |
'was certainly determined to explore bold, fundamental ideas. | 0:31:58 | 0:32:02 | |
'Shakespeare uses his magical island | 0:32:04 | 0:32:07 | |
'to investigate the truth about human nature. | 0:32:07 | 0:32:11 | |
'Are we bestial or benign? | 0:32:11 | 0:32:15 | |
'On another side of the island, his treacherous brother | 0:32:15 | 0:32:19 | |
'and the co-conspirators are struggling to orientate themselves.' | 0:32:19 | 0:32:23 | |
You have cause, so have we all... | 0:32:23 | 0:32:26 | |
'But amongst them is the ageing Gonzalo. | 0:32:26 | 0:32:29 | |
'No traitor he, but a courtier always loyal to Prospero | 0:32:29 | 0:32:33 | |
'and in this virgin world, he dreams of his perfect society.' | 0:32:33 | 0:32:38 | |
..Have just our theme of woe. | 0:32:38 | 0:32:40 | |
All things in common nature should produce without sweat or endeavour. | 0:32:40 | 0:32:46 | |
Treason, felony, sword, pike, knife, gun | 0:32:46 | 0:32:50 | |
or need of any engine would I not have! | 0:32:50 | 0:32:53 | |
Anticipating Karl Marx, | 0:32:54 | 0:32:57 | |
he says that, in future, everything should be held in common. | 0:32:57 | 0:33:01 | |
There should be no usury - making of money out of lending money. | 0:33:01 | 0:33:07 | |
No weapons, no wars. | 0:33:07 | 0:33:10 | |
But nature should bring forth of it own kind, all foison, | 0:33:10 | 0:33:15 | |
all abundance to feed my innocent people. | 0:33:15 | 0:33:19 | |
'Everything should be produced by nature. Paradise. | 0:33:20 | 0:33:24 | |
'It's a radically egalitarian vision.' | 0:33:27 | 0:33:30 | |
That moment in the play where Gonzalo comes onto the stage | 0:33:33 | 0:33:36 | |
and says, "Well, if I were running this place, this deserted island, | 0:33:36 | 0:33:41 | |
"I might organise things totally differently. | 0:33:41 | 0:33:43 | |
"I might actually have a commonwealth | 0:33:43 | 0:33:45 | |
"where everyone has equal political rights. | 0:33:45 | 0:33:48 | |
"I might get rid of kings altogether." | 0:33:48 | 0:33:50 | |
Heretical thought in this time. | 0:33:50 | 0:33:52 | |
And one of the interesting things is that, | 0:33:52 | 0:33:54 | |
within 40 years of this play being written, | 0:33:54 | 0:33:57 | |
all of these debates will erupt in the English Civil Wars. | 0:33:57 | 0:34:00 | |
They will actually become real. | 0:34:00 | 0:34:01 | |
Wondrous heavy. | 0:34:03 | 0:34:04 | |
'Yet hopes of Gonzalo's utopia are quickly dashed. | 0:34:05 | 0:34:08 | |
'No sooner has he described it | 0:34:08 | 0:34:10 | |
'than Shakespeare crushingly presents the obstacles there would be in achieving it.' | 0:34:10 | 0:34:15 | |
As sleep overtakes the other survivors, | 0:34:16 | 0:34:20 | |
Prospero's usurping brother, Antonio, | 0:34:20 | 0:34:22 | |
tries to persuade his crony to commit murder, | 0:34:22 | 0:34:27 | |
to gain for both of them more wealth and more power. | 0:34:27 | 0:34:32 | |
Remember, you did supplant your brother, Prospero. | 0:34:32 | 0:34:35 | |
True. And look how well my garments sit upon me. | 0:34:35 | 0:34:39 | |
Much feater than before. | 0:34:39 | 0:34:41 | |
'Even in a new land, if you create an ideal society, | 0:34:41 | 0:34:46 | |
'the worser human instincts will always emerge.' | 0:34:46 | 0:34:49 | |
I think it's a tabula rasa, the island. It's a clean slate. | 0:34:52 | 0:34:56 | |
There's no connection to civilisation, | 0:34:56 | 0:34:58 | |
so you have to see how, nature or nurture, | 0:34:58 | 0:35:04 | |
how embedded is it in humanity? | 0:35:04 | 0:35:07 | |
'You have this court come to the island. | 0:35:07 | 0:35:09 | |
'They have no castles, they have nothing.' | 0:35:09 | 0:35:12 | |
And yet all what is nature in them, | 0:35:12 | 0:35:14 | |
which is the deceit, starts up again. | 0:35:14 | 0:35:18 | |
Their character is embedded in them. | 0:35:18 | 0:35:21 | |
And you watch this incredible, duplicitous nature | 0:35:21 | 0:35:24 | |
come out in the conspiracy. | 0:35:24 | 0:35:27 | |
'Despite our flawed nature, | 0:35:28 | 0:35:31 | |
'we humans keep longing for a mythical paradise. | 0:35:31 | 0:35:35 | |
'This is the Eden Project, built to cherish a natural world | 0:35:35 | 0:35:39 | |
'that, given the creatures we are, we're in danger of losing. | 0:35:39 | 0:35:43 | |
'But is this what Shakespeare was saying?' | 0:35:44 | 0:35:46 | |
Shakespeare was a very, very clever writer. | 0:35:48 | 0:35:51 | |
Remember, all the plays at the time were submitted to the censor | 0:35:51 | 0:35:55 | |
to be read before they could be staged. | 0:35:55 | 0:35:58 | |
Most of Shakespeare's contemporaries at one time or another | 0:35:58 | 0:36:01 | |
ended up getting into big political trouble, often ending up in prison. | 0:36:01 | 0:36:05 | |
However, he didn't shy away from the big, difficult political questions, | 0:36:05 | 0:36:10 | |
questions about the nature of good government, | 0:36:10 | 0:36:13 | |
questions about monarchy versus republicanism, | 0:36:13 | 0:36:17 | |
questions of what might you do to establish a colony or an empire. | 0:36:17 | 0:36:22 | |
These were hot topics at the time, | 0:36:22 | 0:36:24 | |
and a play like The Tempest goes straight into them. | 0:36:24 | 0:36:26 | |
'As the play continues, | 0:36:30 | 0:36:31 | |
'Shakespeare delves even deeper into the darker side of human nature. | 0:36:31 | 0:36:36 | |
'Caliban comes across two surviving drunken shipmates, | 0:36:36 | 0:36:40 | |
'a jester and a butler, | 0:36:40 | 0:36:42 | |
'and together, they strike a deadly deal. | 0:36:42 | 0:36:46 | |
'Caliban, desperate for his freedom, wants Prospero dead. | 0:36:46 | 0:36:50 | |
'He tells them how, in detail, they must kill the Magus.' | 0:36:50 | 0:36:54 | |
There, thou mayst brain her | 0:36:54 | 0:36:58 | |
Or with a log batter her skull | 0:36:58 | 0:37:00 | |
Or paunch her with a stake | 0:37:00 | 0:37:02 | |
Or cut her weasand with thy knife. | 0:37:02 | 0:37:04 | |
'If they will kill Prospero, | 0:37:04 | 0:37:06 | |
'then the butler will be king of the island, Miranda his concubine.' | 0:37:06 | 0:37:11 | |
She will become thy bed, I warrant, and bring thee forth brave brood. | 0:37:11 | 0:37:18 | |
Monster, I will kill this witch. | 0:37:20 | 0:37:22 | |
Pleasure! | 0:37:22 | 0:37:24 | |
'The deal is done. | 0:37:24 | 0:37:25 | |
'Prospero is now a dead man walking.' | 0:37:25 | 0:37:29 | |
# ..Thought is free... # | 0:37:29 | 0:37:30 | |
'So can anyone be trusted with power? | 0:37:33 | 0:37:36 | |
'This question underpins the play. | 0:37:37 | 0:37:39 | |
'It even applies to Prospero himself. | 0:37:39 | 0:37:42 | |
'Prospero's power is rather different. | 0:37:44 | 0:37:47 | |
'His magic comes from his knowledge, his book, | 0:37:47 | 0:37:51 | |
'an idea familiar to a 17th-century audience.' | 0:37:51 | 0:37:54 | |
In the early modern period, magic is a practice. | 0:37:56 | 0:38:00 | |
Not anyone can be a wise man, a Magus. | 0:38:00 | 0:38:03 | |
You have to work at it. | 0:38:03 | 0:38:04 | |
You have to study the books and the records, | 0:38:04 | 0:38:07 | |
you have to explore scientifically, by experimentation, | 0:38:07 | 0:38:11 | |
the different permutations of chemicals, the types of dye, | 0:38:11 | 0:38:15 | |
the different movements of the stars. | 0:38:15 | 0:38:17 | |
If it's handled in the wrong way, it can become ungodly. | 0:38:17 | 0:38:21 | |
And one of the keen things I think we see in the play | 0:38:21 | 0:38:24 | |
is that delicate balance between good and bad magic. | 0:38:24 | 0:38:28 | |
'This tension recurs throughout The Tempest. | 0:38:29 | 0:38:32 | |
'How should the power of knowledge or science be used? | 0:38:32 | 0:38:37 | |
'It's a timeless and universal question, of course, | 0:38:37 | 0:38:41 | |
'and has prompted a very different version of Shakespeare's story.' | 0:38:41 | 0:38:44 | |
'These magnificent scenes, in striking Eastman Color, | 0:38:47 | 0:38:50 | |
'stagger the imagination.' | 0:38:50 | 0:38:52 | |
But it is, look! That is striking Eastman Color. | 0:38:52 | 0:38:56 | |
'Forbidden Planet | 0:38:56 | 0:38:57 | |
'is film critic Mark Kermode's favourite Shakespeare adaptation.' | 0:38:57 | 0:39:02 | |
'Imagine yourself as one of the crew of this faster-than-light | 0:39:02 | 0:39:05 | |
'spaceship of the future.' | 0:39:05 | 0:39:08 | |
'In this sci-fi take on the play, the island is a planet in outer space.' | 0:39:08 | 0:39:12 | |
'When you reach the Forbidden Planet, you will meet Dr Morbius...' | 0:39:13 | 0:39:17 | |
'The Prospero is a scientist.' | 0:39:17 | 0:39:20 | |
'The doctor is sole owner of this fabulous world.' | 0:39:20 | 0:39:22 | |
'There is a Miranda and a Ferdinand.' | 0:39:22 | 0:39:25 | |
Didn't bring my bathing suit. | 0:39:25 | 0:39:27 | |
What's a bathing suit? | 0:39:27 | 0:39:29 | |
Oh-oh! | 0:39:29 | 0:39:31 | |
'There's a mysterious power.' | 0:39:31 | 0:39:32 | |
'..conceal a strange and evil force...unknown, irresistible.' | 0:39:32 | 0:39:38 | |
'But the essential question remains the same - | 0:39:39 | 0:39:42 | |
'who can be entrusted with special power?' | 0:39:42 | 0:39:45 | |
The idea of it is that this spaceship arrives on a planet | 0:39:48 | 0:39:51 | |
which is being ruled by this vaguely sinister | 0:39:51 | 0:39:56 | |
but generally benevolent scientist, | 0:39:56 | 0:39:58 | |
and somehow Morbius has tapped into this power that he didn't create - | 0:39:58 | 0:40:03 | |
it was put there by a previous civilisation - | 0:40:03 | 0:40:06 | |
he doesn't understand it | 0:40:06 | 0:40:07 | |
and yet, in his dream states, in his unconscious rages, | 0:40:07 | 0:40:12 | |
he lets loose this monstrous force. | 0:40:12 | 0:40:15 | |
But does he ever use it for anything benign? | 0:40:15 | 0:40:19 | |
I mean, Prospero can be punitive and mean-spirited, | 0:40:19 | 0:40:23 | |
and it looks like he is going to be vengeful, | 0:40:23 | 0:40:26 | |
but he can also be generous with his magic, celebratory with his magic. | 0:40:26 | 0:40:32 | |
Yes, he is benign. Yes, he uses it to create | 0:40:32 | 0:40:35 | |
this wonderful Eden-like world for his daughter to grow up in. | 0:40:35 | 0:40:39 | |
'But, presumably, Paradise won't last.' | 0:40:39 | 0:40:43 | |
'It's very cleverly played on the cusp of sinister and avuncular.' | 0:40:43 | 0:40:48 | |
I think that's the reason the film works, | 0:40:48 | 0:40:50 | |
because he is paternal he is benevolent, he is good, | 0:40:50 | 0:40:52 | |
but he also is marshalling a power | 0:40:52 | 0:40:54 | |
that enables the dark side to run rampant. | 0:40:54 | 0:40:58 | |
I would say the climax of the story is him | 0:40:58 | 0:41:01 | |
realising that what is monstrous out there in the world is actually him. | 0:41:01 | 0:41:06 | |
And it is, in the end, a film about him facing up | 0:41:06 | 0:41:10 | |
to the responsibility he has, having played with this power. | 0:41:10 | 0:41:14 | |
'Back on Shakespeare's island, | 0:41:17 | 0:41:19 | |
'the benign side of Prospero's nature seems to be winning, | 0:41:19 | 0:41:22 | |
'at least as far as his daughter is concerned. | 0:41:22 | 0:41:25 | |
'Ignoring the plot against his life, | 0:41:26 | 0:41:28 | |
'he's concentrating intently on her courtship. | 0:41:28 | 0:41:32 | |
Pray set it down and rest you. | 0:41:32 | 0:41:35 | |
'Disobediently, she has gone to see Ferdinand - | 0:41:35 | 0:41:37 | |
'secretly, she thinks, but in fact Prospero is watching.' | 0:41:37 | 0:41:40 | |
My father's hard at study. | 0:41:40 | 0:41:42 | |
Pray now, rest yourself. He's safe these three hours. | 0:41:42 | 0:41:46 | |
Poor worm, thou art infected. | 0:41:46 | 0:41:48 | |
There is just an element of bad taste about that, isn't there, | 0:41:48 | 0:41:52 | |
'in hiding and overhearing and spying?' | 0:41:52 | 0:41:55 | |
We come to realise that it's entirely protectively. | 0:41:55 | 0:42:00 | |
Pray, give me that... | 0:42:00 | 0:42:01 | |
'Love is a tricky thing, you know?' | 0:42:01 | 0:42:03 | |
He has to be tested. | 0:42:03 | 0:42:04 | |
If he says that he loves her, does he really love her? | 0:42:04 | 0:42:08 | |
'Prospero absolutely has to know what kind of a guy he is.' | 0:42:08 | 0:42:12 | |
-What is your name? -Miranda. | 0:42:12 | 0:42:15 | |
Oh, my father, I have broke your hest to say so. | 0:42:15 | 0:42:18 | |
'Clearly, by now, Miranda is ready to assert herself.' | 0:42:18 | 0:42:22 | |
If Miranda didn't have her moment of disobedience, | 0:42:22 | 0:42:26 | |
I would feel much less enthusiastic about her. | 0:42:26 | 0:42:30 | |
'In fact, she does want to hang out with Ferdinand,' | 0:42:30 | 0:42:34 | |
even at the cost of disobeying her father's wish. | 0:42:34 | 0:42:38 | |
Do you love me? | 0:42:38 | 0:42:39 | |
Oh, heaven! | 0:42:39 | 0:42:40 | |
'She has been brought up to be the obedient child,' | 0:42:40 | 0:42:44 | |
but in fact there is fire in her. | 0:42:44 | 0:42:46 | |
I am a fool to weep at what I am glad of. | 0:42:46 | 0:42:49 | |
Fair encounter of two most rare affections. | 0:42:49 | 0:42:53 | |
Prospero is starting to realise that Ferdinand does love his daughter. | 0:42:53 | 0:42:59 | |
'He stays and he watches them.' | 0:42:59 | 0:43:01 | |
I am your wife, | 0:43:02 | 0:43:04 | |
if you will marry me. | 0:43:04 | 0:43:06 | |
'And, actually, it's quite touching, in performance, to see him' | 0:43:06 | 0:43:10 | |
watching his only daughter fall in love with another man. | 0:43:10 | 0:43:15 | |
'Prospero is beginning to let go. | 0:43:17 | 0:43:20 | |
'He's initiated their union and tested the prince | 0:43:20 | 0:43:23 | |
'and now he's ready to approve their marriage.' | 0:43:23 | 0:43:27 | |
'The Globe actors are trying out the scene. | 0:43:31 | 0:43:33 | |
'Choosing to forget the would-be murderers, | 0:43:33 | 0:43:37 | |
'Prospero gives himself to his daughter's joyous moment.' | 0:43:37 | 0:43:41 | |
Then, as my gift | 0:43:42 | 0:43:45 | |
and thine own acquisition worthily purchased, | 0:43:45 | 0:43:49 | |
take my daughter. | 0:43:49 | 0:43:50 | |
'But he can't quite let go. | 0:43:52 | 0:43:53 | |
'He gives a stern warning to Ferdinand | 0:43:53 | 0:43:55 | |
'not to even think about pre-marital sex with Miranda. | 0:43:55 | 0:44:00 | |
'Ferdinand protests his innocence.' | 0:44:00 | 0:44:02 | |
..The strongest suggestion our worser genius can, | 0:44:02 | 0:44:06 | |
shall never melt mine honour into lust | 0:44:06 | 0:44:09 | |
to take away the edge of that day's celebration. | 0:44:09 | 0:44:13 | |
Fairly spoke. | 0:44:13 | 0:44:14 | |
Sit, then, and talk with her. | 0:44:16 | 0:44:19 | |
She is thine own. | 0:44:21 | 0:44:22 | |
'Prospero creates a magical display, a musical entertainment | 0:44:30 | 0:44:34 | |
'calling on celestial goddesses to celebrate the betrothal. | 0:44:34 | 0:44:39 | |
'It's a moment of exuberant joy, but it doesn't last. | 0:44:40 | 0:44:45 | |
'Prospero suddenly stops his own show.' | 0:44:45 | 0:44:49 | |
I find the marriage ceremony rather interesting, | 0:44:51 | 0:44:54 | |
because it's actually...it's an aborted marriage ceremony. | 0:44:54 | 0:44:57 | |
He brings them together for nuptial masque, | 0:44:57 | 0:45:01 | |
and Prospero suddenly stops it, | 0:45:01 | 0:45:04 | |
before it's finished, and says, "No, that's enough. | 0:45:04 | 0:45:07 | |
"I don't want that any more." | 0:45:07 | 0:45:09 | |
What's immediately on his mind is that he knows | 0:45:10 | 0:45:13 | |
that Caliban has hatched a plot against him | 0:45:13 | 0:45:17 | |
with Stephano and Trinculo to murder him. | 0:45:17 | 0:45:21 | |
It's possible also that he stops it because | 0:45:21 | 0:45:26 | |
it's too idealistic a view of life to present to his daughter. | 0:45:26 | 0:45:30 | |
Life's not going to be like that. Life isn't perfect. | 0:45:30 | 0:45:33 | |
'But Shakespeare has another purpose. | 0:45:37 | 0:45:39 | |
'The vanishing vision gives Prospero his most penetrating insight. | 0:45:39 | 0:45:44 | |
'In one of the most poetic and, for me, consoling speeches | 0:45:46 | 0:45:49 | |
'Shakespeare ever wrote, Prospero addresses the young couple | 0:45:49 | 0:45:53 | |
'and talks about the fragility and transience of life itself.' | 0:45:53 | 0:45:58 | |
You do look, my son, in a moved sort, as if you were dismayed. | 0:46:00 | 0:46:06 | |
Be cheerful, sir. | 0:46:07 | 0:46:09 | |
Our revels now are ended. | 0:46:09 | 0:46:13 | |
These, our actors, as I foretold you, | 0:46:15 | 0:46:18 | |
were all spirits | 0:46:18 | 0:46:19 | |
and are melted into air, | 0:46:19 | 0:46:22 | |
into thin air. | 0:46:22 | 0:46:25 | |
And like the baseless fabric of this vision, | 0:46:26 | 0:46:29 | |
the cloud-capped towers, | 0:46:29 | 0:46:33 | |
the gorgeous palaces, | 0:46:33 | 0:46:36 | |
the solemn temples, | 0:46:36 | 0:46:40 | |
the great globe itself, | 0:46:40 | 0:46:42 | |
yea, all which it inherits shall dissolve... | 0:46:42 | 0:46:46 | |
'Climactically, in that speech,' | 0:46:46 | 0:46:49 | |
he uses the phrase "the great globe itself". | 0:46:49 | 0:46:54 | |
Now, partly, of course, he means the world - the globe - | 0:46:54 | 0:46:59 | |
that's what we refer to, the globe, | 0:46:59 | 0:47:03 | |
but it's the name of his theatre, the great Globe itself. | 0:47:03 | 0:47:08 | |
All of our shows - all of these things that we've created here - | 0:47:08 | 0:47:13 | |
will disappear, they won't be around any more. | 0:47:13 | 0:47:17 | |
In that way, I think, it's 100% certain that there is that autobiographical ingredient. | 0:47:17 | 0:47:24 | |
And like this insubstantial pageant faded... | 0:47:24 | 0:47:27 | |
..leave not a rack behind. | 0:47:29 | 0:47:31 | |
We are such stuff as dreams are made on. | 0:47:33 | 0:47:38 | |
And our little life... | 0:47:40 | 0:47:42 | |
..is rounded with a sleep. | 0:47:43 | 0:47:46 | |
'Everything in this life is like a series of visions. | 0:47:54 | 0:47:59 | |
'It's like a series of scenes on stage, but in the end, | 0:47:59 | 0:48:02 | |
'all we're doing is writing on the sand, | 0:48:02 | 0:48:06 | |
'and the next tide comes in, and our beautiful message is washed away. | 0:48:06 | 0:48:11 | |
'Understand life in those terms -' | 0:48:12 | 0:48:15 | |
we are such stuff as dreams are made on. | 0:48:15 | 0:48:19 | |
And our little life is rounded with a sleep. | 0:48:19 | 0:48:25 | |
'So, something powerful is stirring in Prospero, | 0:48:29 | 0:48:32 | |
'as he tries to come to terms | 0:48:32 | 0:48:34 | |
'with those who've wronged him | 0:48:34 | 0:48:35 | |
'and to decide what he should do with them. | 0:48:35 | 0:48:39 | |
'Losing Miranda has radically changed him.' | 0:48:39 | 0:48:42 | |
Whatever he wants to do to even the score, | 0:48:45 | 0:48:48 | |
another generation will come, | 0:48:48 | 0:48:49 | |
time passes, and time passing means, of course, | 0:48:49 | 0:48:54 | |
that all the structures of imagination and fantasy - | 0:48:54 | 0:48:58 | |
the cloud-capped towers - are all going to disappear. | 0:48:58 | 0:49:01 | |
So how do you live from one moment to the next? | 0:49:01 | 0:49:04 | |
That's what he's left with at that moment. | 0:49:04 | 0:49:07 | |
There's a sort of wonderful sense of inevitability - | 0:49:10 | 0:49:13 | |
I think, that's what it is - | 0:49:13 | 0:49:16 | |
of the onward roll of life and death, life and death, | 0:49:16 | 0:49:21 | |
life and death, and that we are all a part of that onward roll, | 0:49:21 | 0:49:25 | |
and there's nothing we can do about it. | 0:49:25 | 0:49:29 | |
'While he's turning over these thoughts and feelings, | 0:49:29 | 0:49:33 | |
'Prospero's given another emotional jolt. | 0:49:33 | 0:49:37 | |
'Ariel describes how he has brought the group of conspirators | 0:49:37 | 0:49:40 | |
'across the island, where they wait, paralysed in fear and distress. | 0:49:40 | 0:49:45 | |
'Now Prospero's non-human spirit talks about human compassion.' | 0:49:45 | 0:49:51 | |
..That if you now beheld them... | 0:49:51 | 0:49:54 | |
..your affections would become tender. | 0:49:55 | 0:49:58 | |
Dost thou think so, spirit? | 0:50:02 | 0:50:05 | |
Mine would, master...were I human. | 0:50:05 | 0:50:09 | |
Prospero thinks, "My God! | 0:50:11 | 0:50:15 | |
"If my spirit, Ariel, is so moved that he's saying | 0:50:15 | 0:50:22 | |
"you have to forgive, then that's what I have to..." | 0:50:22 | 0:50:25 | |
And everything changes. | 0:50:25 | 0:50:27 | |
'Prospero decides he will now make the ultimate personal sacrifice - | 0:50:28 | 0:50:33 | |
'he will surrender his magical powers. | 0:50:33 | 0:50:36 | |
'There's a special poignancy in this surrender if you think, | 0:50:36 | 0:50:39 | |
'as I do, that Shakespeare is, in part, writing about himself. | 0:50:39 | 0:50:44 | |
'Shakespeare, like Prospero, has spent years conjuring with his imagination, | 0:50:44 | 0:50:50 | |
'but after The Tempest, he will write no more plays.' | 0:50:50 | 0:50:53 | |
Ye elves of hills, | 0:50:53 | 0:50:57 | |
brooks, standing lakes and groves. | 0:50:57 | 0:51:01 | |
'Calling up his spirits for one last time, | 0:51:01 | 0:51:05 | |
'Prospero remembers his extraordinary accomplishments. | 0:51:05 | 0:51:09 | |
'Shakespeare too has summoned countless visions | 0:51:10 | 0:51:13 | |
'and brought the dead to life.' | 0:51:13 | 0:51:16 | |
Graves at my command | 0:51:16 | 0:51:19 | |
have waked their sleepers, oped and let 'em forth | 0:51:19 | 0:51:22 | |
by my so potent art. | 0:51:22 | 0:51:25 | |
But this rough magic... | 0:51:27 | 0:51:32 | |
..I here abjure. | 0:51:33 | 0:51:36 | |
I'll drown my book. | 0:51:36 | 0:51:39 | |
'I think it's a devastating moment to let go of all of that.' | 0:51:41 | 0:51:46 | |
Also, it's a kind of growing up moment for Prospero/Prospera, | 0:51:46 | 0:51:51 | |
not just letting go of power, | 0:51:51 | 0:51:53 | |
letting go of rage, letting go of anger, letting go of revenge. | 0:51:53 | 0:51:59 | |
'It's kind of sad and melancholic, but it's full of understanding.' | 0:51:59 | 0:52:03 | |
'The connection I see between Prospero and Shakespeare | 0:52:11 | 0:52:15 | |
'makes this for me a particularly moving speech. | 0:52:15 | 0:52:18 | |
'I do think that The Tempest is a farewell work,' | 0:52:19 | 0:52:24 | |
but I didn't see that final departure as "I'm turning my back on you, | 0:52:24 | 0:52:31 | |
"I'm abandoning you." No, "I'm leaving you with everything I have | 0:52:31 | 0:52:37 | |
"to offer and I want it to stay with you, but I have to go. | 0:52:37 | 0:52:43 | |
"Farewell, goodbye, I will never see you again" moment is something | 0:52:43 | 0:52:51 | |
that we all understand and have a very strong emotional reaction to. | 0:52:51 | 0:52:56 | |
With so many very great artists, the point comes, it seems, | 0:52:56 | 0:53:02 | |
where they see their own work, their own utterance, | 0:53:02 | 0:53:05 | |
as having resolved nothing | 0:53:05 | 0:53:07 | |
and they empty their hands. The sense of the all-powerful, | 0:53:07 | 0:53:11 | |
magical figure manipulating stories suddenly saying, | 0:53:11 | 0:53:16 | |
"I can't do this any longer, I have to become human." | 0:53:16 | 0:53:19 | |
I think that is something that is bound into the really great artists' work. | 0:53:19 | 0:53:24 | |
'But before Prospero drowns his book, he must finally come | 0:53:29 | 0:53:33 | |
'face to face with his enemies, | 0:53:33 | 0:53:35 | |
'the moment he has dreamed of for years.' | 0:53:35 | 0:53:37 | |
With a great final spell, | 0:53:37 | 0:53:39 | |
Prospero brings all his enemies around him in a circle. | 0:53:39 | 0:53:46 | |
What's he going to do? | 0:53:46 | 0:53:48 | |
'He confronts each one of them with what they've done.' | 0:53:50 | 0:53:54 | |
But for you, my brace of lords, were I so minded, | 0:53:54 | 0:53:58 | |
I here could pluck His Highness' frown upon you | 0:53:58 | 0:54:01 | |
and justify you traitors. | 0:54:01 | 0:54:02 | |
At this time, I will tell no tales. | 0:54:02 | 0:54:06 | |
The devil speaks in him! | 0:54:06 | 0:54:08 | |
Oh, no! | 0:54:08 | 0:54:10 | |
For you, most wicked sir, | 0:54:11 | 0:54:14 | |
whom to call brother | 0:54:14 | 0:54:17 | |
would even infect my mouth... | 0:54:17 | 0:54:19 | |
..I forgive thy rankest fault. | 0:54:22 | 0:54:25 | |
All of them... | 0:54:28 | 0:54:29 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:54:29 | 0:54:31 | |
..and require my dukedom of thee, | 0:54:31 | 0:54:33 | |
which, perforce, I know thou must restore. | 0:54:33 | 0:54:37 | |
'He has forgiven, but it's been hard.' | 0:54:38 | 0:54:43 | |
He's not gracious at the end. He's really struggling, | 0:54:43 | 0:54:46 | |
he is an ageing, angry, injured man | 0:54:46 | 0:54:49 | |
who has lived with himself for a long time, | 0:54:49 | 0:54:52 | |
and he knows what he has to do and grits his teeth and he does it. | 0:54:52 | 0:54:56 | |
And that is, I think, one of most extraordinary things about the play, | 0:54:56 | 0:55:01 | |
that the bitter, savage, isolated Magus figure at the beginning | 0:55:01 | 0:55:06 | |
has become a recognisable human being - he has broken | 0:55:06 | 0:55:09 | |
his magic wand and he's joined the human race again. | 0:55:09 | 0:55:13 | |
'Finally, Prospero must be true to his spirit slave and give Ariel the freedom he yearns for.' | 0:55:13 | 0:55:19 | |
That... | 0:55:19 | 0:55:21 | |
That idea that we are all entitled to our freedom | 0:55:21 | 0:55:26 | |
is very potent in the play, and Prospero keeps his word with Ariel. | 0:55:26 | 0:55:32 | |
Then to the elements be free. | 0:55:32 | 0:55:36 | |
'I love the end, cos what he longs for is just to no longer be in a human form' | 0:55:39 | 0:55:43 | |
and be a spirit - to be with the wind, the elements, | 0:55:43 | 0:55:49 | |
to dissolve into that. | 0:55:49 | 0:55:51 | |
'Prospero seems to pardon his would-be murder, Caliban, too.' | 0:55:52 | 0:55:57 | |
It was a moment of mutual recognition, of acceptance, | 0:56:03 | 0:56:09 | |
a full recognition of the other. | 0:56:09 | 0:56:13 | |
'And so, at the end of his last play, | 0:56:17 | 0:56:19 | |
'Shakespeare tells us the struggle to achieve forgiveness can be won. | 0:56:19 | 0:56:24 | |
'Prospero has managed to forgive | 0:56:24 | 0:56:27 | |
'and, in doing so, he has also freed himself. | 0:56:27 | 0:56:30 | |
'Again, the parallels between Prospero and Shakespeare. | 0:56:30 | 0:56:35 | |
'In an epilogue, Prospero, no longer empowered, makes a plea of great simplicity. | 0:56:35 | 0:56:41 | |
'He steps forward and asks us, the audience, to set him free.' | 0:56:41 | 0:56:45 | |
"Now my charms are all o'erthrown. | 0:56:46 | 0:56:50 | |
"And what strength I have's mine own, | 0:56:50 | 0:56:54 | |
"which is most faint. | 0:56:54 | 0:56:56 | |
"As you from crimes would pardoned be, | 0:56:56 | 0:57:02 | |
"let your indulgence set me free." | 0:57:02 | 0:57:07 | |
'After writing The Tempest, Shakespeare left London for good and returned to Stratford. | 0:57:12 | 0:57:18 | |
'Just two years later, he died. He was only 52. | 0:57:18 | 0:57:23 | |
'I've worked in theatre for all of my adult life' | 0:57:28 | 0:57:33 | |
and I can't begin to understand how he could have worked | 0:57:33 | 0:57:36 | |
at such a pitch, at such a scale, | 0:57:36 | 0:57:41 | |
in such a short span of time. | 0:57:41 | 0:57:44 | |
For me, The Tempest will always be exceptional, | 0:57:46 | 0:57:50 | |
not just because of its wisdom and humanity, | 0:57:50 | 0:57:53 | |
but because, more than any of his other plays, | 0:57:53 | 0:57:57 | |
it leads us to the essence of the man who wrote them. | 0:57:57 | 0:58:01 | |
My feeling is that it's in The Tempest, | 0:58:03 | 0:58:06 | |
through the character of Prospero, | 0:58:06 | 0:58:10 | |
that we get closest to the workings | 0:58:10 | 0:58:13 | |
of the mind of that genius, William Shakespeare. | 0:58:13 | 0:58:18 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:32 | 0:58:35 |