Mason Alexander Park as Ariel in The Tempest at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

Dear Readers, this was the third time that I’ve seen The Tempest on stage. First up, it was Patrick Stewart who did a run of Shakespeare a few years ago, including Antony and Cleopatra and Macbeth. His Prospero had been marooned somewhere in the Arctic, with Caliban emerging from the body of a dead walrus. So far, so entertaining. Then I saw a high-tech production at The Barbican, with Simon Russell Beale as Prospero – I think of this as the gold standard of The Tempests that I’ve been lucky enough to witness. What was remarkable about this latter production was the clarity of the verse, which is some of the loveliest in all of Shakespeare. “Full fathom five thy father lies” is both beautiful and chilling, and this is the play that “Vanish’d into thin air” comes from. 

And so we go to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, for Jamie Lloyd’s production of the play, starring Alien actress Sigourney Weaver as Prospero. Well, you can’t complain that you don’t see much of Weaver, as she’s seated on stage pretty much throughout the production. Does it make much difference having Prospero as a woman? It maybe adds a maternal dimension to her relationship with her daughter, Miranda (played here by Mara Huf with all the awkwardness and stroppiness of a typical teenager) but although Prospero is actually the ringmaster (mistress) of the play, the one that makes everything happen, she appeared more of a cipher here, a narrator rather than a dynamic part of the action. It’s a shame that it’s only at the end, where she comes forward for the ‘Our revels now are ended’ speech, that we actually notice any emotion. Weaver has had a lot of stick from the reviewers for her rather flat delivery, but I do wonder how much of that is the direction rather than Weaver herself.

The play runs for just over two hours including interval, so a fair amount must have been trimmed. What this means is we get a higher proportion of clowning about from Trinculo and Sebastian, the shipwrecked servants, and Caliban, the ‘mooncalf’, who is for some reason dressed in PVC shorts and a chest harness. Someone described aspects of this production as being like a theatre undergraduate’s first attempt at Shakespeare, which is a bit unkind but not wholly inaccurate.

A very honourable mention here to Mason Alexander Park as Ariel, who manages to combine an ethereal quality with a steely determination to do Prospero’s bidding, in order to finally win their freedom. They have a great singing voice as well, and manage to look cool while dangling from the ceiling, not an easy thing to do. And also to Selina Cadell as Gonzago, who spoke Shakespeare’s verse with more clarity and nuance than anyone else in the production.

So, it was an ‘interesting’ afternoon of theatre, enhanced by the special effects – the stage set looks like a blasted volcanic rock and there is some clever sound work (sometimes at the expense of the verse, sadly). And at the end we had that most irritating of theatrical experiences, the demi-standing ovation, where half the audience springs to their feet (largely to support Weaver I suspect) and the other half wonder if they’d just sat through the same experience.

Sigourney Weaver at the end of The Tempest