The Tempest

George Mount’s production of The Tempest (for Seattle Shakespeare Company) feels like a standard Elizabethan approach, save for a few morbid hints that the play isn’t about the power of magic so much as the power of Prospero’s deathbed imagination. He may be a commanding sorcerer within the confines of his mind, but the occasional beep of a heart monitor or the light of a hospital lamp suggest a man whose feeble body will soon give way to the grave. Prospero (Michael Winters) has plenty of unfinished business. His brother usurped his dukedom, he’s been banished to an island, and he’s raised his daughter in near-solitude. As his servant, Peter Dylan O’Connor's Caliban is dressed in bondage attire. He’s a bitter native, disenfranchised by the entitled Prospero, and he desperately wants his island back. The production is supplemented by original music from Jesse Sykes and Phil Wandscher, who’ve taken their country-noir and turned it into a sort of Elizabethan-noir. BRENT ARONOWITZ [See Brent's full review.]
Thursdays-Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m.; Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., June 20, 2 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., June 27, 10:30 p.m. Starts: June 4. Continues through June 28, 2009