Prospero’s magic versus the mic
Director Nike Doukas' The Tempest, at Antaeus Theatre Company, feels like an Orson Wells' Mercury Theatre radio play erupted around a 1920s three-piece jazz combo. Surrounding the microphones center stage are a series of desks set up like little foley stations for sound effects. As you enter the theater, the jazz combo is already in full swing and the cast mills about eventually joining in song.
Once Prospero begins our tale, the action unfolds in a mixture of presentational radio drama — with the actors at mics performing facing the audience as if we are their scene partner with songs interspersed to punctuate the acts. Those microphones play a central role and all the sounds of this enchanted isle are created by the actors.
At first all these sounds and the theatrical business to make them is thrilling. The soundscape is rich and there's the fun of watching the sound effects come to life. The paradox of the production is that some of its greatest strengths ultimately keep it from making the impact that it should.
This being Shakespeare and this being Antaeus, the text is central and the actors don't disappoint. The story is clear and the words are rich. While the comedy might be a bit broad for some, our central love story of the young exiled princess and shipwrecked prince is charming.
The production’s challenges happen just as Shakespeare's language is at its most evocative. The Tempest is more than a simple love story. In acts four and five, the text takes on a more profound and reflective tone. Some of Shakespeare's most memorable passages fill the stage. Peter Van Norden, who plays our Prospero, has a deep sense of this shift in tone and captures it beautifully. The words themselves become the poetic music of the play.
Here's where the Antaeus production feels at odds with the play itself. All those enchanted sounds and microphone magic compete with not only the musical text but the deeper sentiment that helps "The Tempest" pack an emotional punch. Prospero's magic, like Shakespeare's, is in words that conjure. When all those imagined sounds are realized for us, however theatrically, it robs the audience of our part in the alchemy where the words meet our imaginations. When Prospero finally gives up those powers, himself like a late-in-life Shakespeare, the emotional impact doesn't feel quite as poignant.
The production seems to know this and ultimately forswears the microphones in the final moments, but it feels too late and our moment has passed.
Like most Antaeus productions, the challenges that exist are great problems to have. It's because the text is so clear that you long for more of it. This Tempest might not leave you grieving Prospero's art, but it will leave you thoroughly entertained.
The Tempest plays at Antaeus Theatre Company in Glendale through July 30th.
