Shakespeare Preview: The Tempest

As the Great River Shakespeare Festival points out in an article printed in the program (and included on its website), Shakespeare generally provides just about all of the relevant information required to enjoy the play in the opening scenes. This is certainly true in the Tempest’s opening scenes. But much of this information comes in a lengthy monologue given by Prospero to his daughter—a monologue that even Prospero senses could prove challenging to follow. Another challenge for the audience is keeping track of the large number of characters who enter the stage (and the previously sparsely populated island.) Having a general idea of who the characters are and how they are related to each other could be helpful. (The GRSF program lists the characters alphabetically by cast members last name. This practice is more egalitarian than the traditional hierarchy in a Shakespearean cast of characters: male royalty in order of title—king, dukes, then lords—the rest of the men, female royalty, the rest of the females. But the alphabetical list provides little help in grouping together characters on stage in any meaningful way.)

Following are groupings of the characters as they appear in the play:

Island Inhabitants

Prospero (Jonathan Gillard Daley) and Ariel (Tara Flanagan) in the Great River Shakespeare Festival production of The Tempest.

Prospero (former Duke of Milan)
Miranda (Prospero’s teenaged daughter)
Caliban (An island native, slave to Prospero)
Ariel (an “airy spirit”)
Other spirits/nymphs

Prospero and Miranda took shelter on this tropical Island after a shipwreck, 12 years before the action of the play. Prospero had been the Duke of Milan, but was forced out by his brother (Antonio) with help from the King of Naples (Alonso). Prospero became “lord” of the island by freeing the spirit Ariel who had been imprisoned by a sorceress’s spell. The sorceress, Sycorax, had died before Prospero and Miranda arrived. Sycorax left a son, Caliban.

Survivors of Shipwreck—group 1

Ferdinand

The survivors of the shipwreck are separated during the wreck and come to the island believing that they are the only survivors. Ferdinand is the son of the King of Naples and is instantly attracted to Miranda (who is attracted to him as well).

Survivors of Shipwreck—group 2

Alonso (King of Naples)
Sebastion (the King’s brother)
Antonio (Prospero’s brother, now Duke of Milan)
Gonzalo (and old counselor to Antonio-had been counselor to Prospero)
Adrian (lord from Naples)
Francisco (lord from Naples)

The royalty wander the island believing that they are the only survivors from the ship and the only humans on the island. These royals were sailing home from the marriage of the King’s daughter to the King of Tunis. Now the king believes his son, and heir to the thrown, has drowned. Conveniently, all of Prospero’s enemies have landed on his island.

Survivors of Shipwreck—group 3

Trinculo (a jester)
Stephano (a drunken butler)

These two characters do little to further the plot of the play, yet they provide much in the way of Shakespearean humor. Besides, someone has to keep tabs on the ship’s stock of wine.

The Tempest and Colonialism

The Great River Shakespeare Festival’s production of the Tempest doesn’t deal with issues of slavery and colonialism according to the article in the program: “Some people hold that these [Colonialism and slavery] are the themes inherent in Shakespeare’s play; we don’t, but even if they were, you wouldn’t need to know much about them to have a rich and satisfying experience in the theatre.” And while it is true that a colonial (or post colonial) perspective is not necessary for a fine production of the play, this play may be Shakespeare’s only connection with those of us living in the western hemisphere, so it may be worth exploring this connection a bit.

The Tempest was written late in Shakespeare’s career, with the earliest performance on record in 1611.¹ By this time, English exploration by sea was well under way and the stories of interactions with native peoples were finding their way back to England. The Jamestown colony was established in 1607, and a 1609 shipwreck off the Bermuda Islands of a ship heading for Jamestown may form part of the story for The Tempest. Much of the crew survived the wreck, spent a year on an island in the Bermudas, re-built two ships, and made it to Jamestown.² It is likely that Shakespeare read the published accounts of the voyage and its year-long adventure on the island, including a description of the island that seems echoed in the play: “country so abundantly fruitful of all fit necessaries for the sustenation and preservation of a man’s life.”³

In addition to the stories of islands, Shakespeare would have known about captured Native Americans displayed in Europe as savages. According to Historian Ronald Takaki, English explorers continued Columbus’s practice of kidnapping natives and bringing them to Europe for display. ⁴ This practice is even referenced in The Tempest. When Stephano first discovers Calaban on the island, he alludes to the possibility of bringing the islander to Italy for profit: “If I can recover him and keep him tame and get to Naples with him, he’s a present for any emperor that ever trod on neat’s leather.” II.ii.64-67

Earlier in the scene, Trinculo comes upon the hiding Calaban and refers to the practice of making money from displaying natives, even using the name Indian. “A strange fish! Were I in England now, as once I was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver. There would this monster make a man. Any strange beast there makes a man. When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.” II.ii.27-32.

Because Caliban is most often grouped with the comic duo of Trinculo and Stephano, it’s unlikely that Shakespeare is making much of any type of political or social statement about the abuse of native peoples or the period of colonization that England is embarking on in the early 17th Century. But I do find it fascinating that a historical figure of Shakespeare’s stature, perhaps one of the greatest writers of English, was in some way a witness to the beginning of the clash between European and Native American culture—a clash that has betrayed our own national narrative of fairness and equality and a clash which continues to haunt the continent into the 21st Century.

While there is a connection to the new world of the Western Hemisphere, the Italian royals created by Shakespeare were not likely to travel this far west on their way back from Tunis. Instead the island is more likely located somewhere in the Mediterranean, and Shakespeare leaves Calaban’s ethnicity (and some might argue, humanity) ambiguous.

Notes
¹Hallet Smith. The Riverside Shakespeare, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1997). 1656.
²Gerald Graff and James Phelan, editors. William Shakespeare. The Tempest: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2000) 116.
³Graff and Phelan, 117
⁴RonaldTakaki “The ‘Tempest’ in the Wilderness,” in Graf and Phelan, 148 - 149.

The Tempest plays in repetory with Love's Labour's Lost through July 26.
Visit the Great River Shakespeare Festival for schedules and tickets: grsf.org