19th- and 20th-century Productions of The Tempest

19^th and 20^th Century Productions of the Tempest in America

                The Tempest was published in 1623 and still remains today as a popular play performed throughout theatres around the world. However, the play has gone through changes as the years have passed. Producers look to focus more on different scenes or characters than others as the years have gone on in the production of the play. Michael Dobson has explained, “Though Shakespeare’s fame had grown steadily since about 1750, in the 20th century he became the dominant writer for the stage for much of the world. Performance of his plays vastly increased in frequency and varied in style, intention, and reception. Two issues seem paramount for a summary account: the replacement of the star actor by the director as the chief aesthetic force, and alterations to the architecture of the theatre and the design of the stage under the influence of modernism” (Michael Dobson). Dobson believes that during the 19^th century, there had been major changes to the way Shakespeare’s work had been portrayed. For starters, there were drastic transformations in the design of the theatre and stage due to a new era emerging. The Tempest of course has a large theme of magic surfacing throughout the main characters of Prospero, Caliban, and Ariel. In later years and within the 19^th and 20^th century, the productions of The Tempest began to accentuate the magical theme of the play.

The stage became a place of wonder and began to give a better and more validated sense of the power that these characters possessed. This allowed the audience to feel more in sync with the play and have the audience’s imagination of the play be rewarded in a more legitimate and likeable manner. Characters such as Prospero were able to be interpreted more accurately as the play transformed.

Throughout the late 19^th and early 20^th century, Darwin’s theory of evolution became a more popular idea. The constant struggle to determine what type of being Caliban is has been a major preoccupation for spectators since the play had first been performed. Many believed Caliban to be portrayed as a devilish beast or even some sort of magical creature. Once the theory of evolution came out, Caliban was then portrayed to look more similarly to some sort of monkey and human combination. Producers of the play quickly adopted this idea and thus began the transformation of devil-like Caliban into a depiction based on the picture above. This is further clarification of the major changes production had transformed throughout the centuries and indicates the major differences and interpretations these producers had of the play.

Dennis Kennedy explains, “In 1945–80 the two major developments after the Second World War were also institutional in nature and demonstrated the ascendancy of the director. The first was the creation of the Stratford Shakespearian Festival in a small town in Ontario in Canada, far removed from the traditional centers of Shakespeare activity. Here in 1953 Guthrie designed a stage with a fixed background in mock 16th-century style, and placed it in the middle of a large tent with a semicircular seating arrangement. His achievements were widely admired and the basic shape of the theatre was copied through the 1960s and 1970s. Summer festivals dedicated in whole or part to Shakespeare sprang up swiftly, particularly coast-to-coast in the USA, often using open stages (like the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Ashland Shakespeare Festival in Oregon)” (Dennis Kennedy Oxford Reference). Here you can see that at the Stratford Shakespearian Festival, the producers tried to formulate a stage that replicated something much more similar to the stage that existed in Shakespeare’s time. They added that 16^th century style that gives the audience a sort of special interest because it makes the production of the play more realistic. Guthrie even took the opportunity of changing the seating style back to the way Shakespeare once had it. Guthrie’s usage of the Shakespearian style of production created a gateway to the way American productions that were created. It helped shape the way the stage was produced in both the New York Shakespeare festival and the Ashland Shakespeare festival in Oregon, which are two of the most famous American productions of The Tempest today.