Review: The Tempest at La MaMa

The Tempest begins, as always, with a great storm. Instead of complicated sound effects—whooshing gales, pounding rain, waves crashing on sinking ships—the sounds simply come from the vocals of the actors and musicians. Karin Coonrod and Elizabeth Swados’ uneven production of Shakespeare’s final play revels in its finer details—the awesome lighting effect of a spherical pendulum that creates a constellation effect, the amazingly diverse range of instruments used as a soundscape, the dynamic mood lighting that signals to the audience who is on stage and how exactly to feel about that. In many ways, the story is itself uneven, and this production goes right along with it. First, you have the would-be dramatic main plot: Prospero (Reg E Cathey), former Duke of Milan, is betrayed by his brother Antonio (Earl Baker, Jr) and forced to live out his days on a deserted island with his beautiful daughter Miranda (Miriam A. Hyman), grotesque slave Caliban (Slate Holmgren), and dutiful spirit Ariel (Joseph Harrington). Prospero, a magician, conjures the tempest to strand his enemies on the island, including the complicit King of Naples Alonso (Angus Hepburn), and confront them. He splits them up, causing Alonso’s son Ferdinand (Christopher McLinden) to stumble upon the virginal Miranda and fall in love with her. There is also a subplot involving Antonio and Sebastian (Sorab Wadia), Alonso’s brother, conspiring to kill Alonso so Sebastian can be king. Most of the drama builds up without much pay off.