The Tempest at Seattle Shakespeare Company

For her production of The Tempest at Seattle Shakespeare Company director Annie Lareau created a fascinating production—set in the Edwardian period with appropriately formal, “very British” attire and manners—which was nonetheless a Tempest for our times. Lareau’s cast featured a female Prospero, performed by the talented Mari Nelson; a multi-racial cast; and a truly fascinating use of four separate actors who collectively and simultaneously played Ariel.

Designed by Julia Hayes Welch, Prospero’s “cell” was an Edwardian drawing room lighted by seventeen chandeliers hanging from the low ceiling of the Center Stage Theatre, and two candelabras positioned stage left and right. A large trunk in which two of the four Ariel actors would lay Prospero’s magic gown stood stage right, and in front of the stage-right picture frame was a pile of books to which Ferdinand would later add several volumes. Positioned stage left were two smaller wooden boxes.

From backstage, amid low collective humming by the four Ariels, Prospero emerged wearing a shimmering magic white gown that enveloped her completely. Reaching center stage, her head down, Nelson’s Prospero began a low, guttural moan that rose gradually until she lifted her head and emitted a loud scream that precipitated the storm and shipwreck that then whirled around her. Actors mimicked the careening ship against a background of huge, roiling waves projected on a screen against the…