Queer overeducated ex-Torontonian Holmesian writer.
The Tempest
So CP and I went to The Tempest yesterday, which is not my favourite of Shakespeare's plays. It was a decent production, nice effects, but that's really the problem: like Midsummer Night's Dream, it gets treated as an "Introduce Your Kids to Shakespeare!" play, because there's a happy ending and you can do a lot with special effects. And I don't go to Shakespeare for the special effects.
I would like to see a production sometime where they turned all of Prospero's creepy moments up to eleven, and see what you could do with it if you focused on that, and didn't treat it as a comedy. Which, okay, would in some places require reading against the text pretty hard.
I mean, if you're going to play it straight, I saw a production in High Park several years ago with a black female Prospero, and you're not going to top that. Although I haven't seen the Helen Mirren movie, and I really should.



