Also this issue:

Music Man
James Sugg finds songwriting method amid madness.
-Juliet Fletcher

Coming Out of the Dark
A move into white for Thomas Chimes and vibrant work from Stuart Netsky light up Locks Gallery.
-Robin Rice

Preston Foerder
-Debra Auspitz

Curtis Opera Theatre's French Comic One Acts
-David Shengold

River North Chicago Dance Company
-Janet Anderson

Funky Junk Auction/Bike Parts Art Raid
-Debra Auspitz

City of Angels
-David Anthony Fox

Fiction
-Toby Zinman

April 10-16, 2003

theater

The Tempest

by Toby Zinman

Director Charles McMahon has resisted all the usual temptations to overproduce and overdirect. Because The Tempest is about a magical place, productions often lay on special effects (like elaborately rigged flying) that often sink this delicate play. The Tempest is about the power of the intelligent imagination, and it is with many intelligent, imaginative decisions that this production takes shape, allowing the beauty of the language to create its world.

The plot is familiar: Prospero (Frank X) and his daughter, Miranda (Letitia Lange), have been living on an enchanted island for 12 years after his brother (Paul Nolan) usurped his dukedom. A tempest, conjured up by Prospero's magic powers, shipwrecks his brother and the crew and brings them under his spell. It also provides a young husband (Ahren Potratz) for Miranda, and allows forgiveness and generosity of soul to triumph over the baser human inclinations. Ariel (Erin Breese), the airy sprite, and Caliban (Tony Lawton), the coarse creature of darkness, both enslaved by Prospero, are finally set free on their island while everybody else returns to the real world.

A friend of mine calls an actor's ability to handle the Shakespearean line and make it sound like human speech while still allowing it its splendor "commanding the pentameter." Frank X sure can command the pentameter, and his Prospero is superb, ranging from the gentleness of a worried father to the roaring majesty of a wizard who has "bedimm'd the noontide sun." He manages to find an original and moving reading of the famous speech, "Our revels now are ended," and his face as he observes Miranda and Ferdinand wooing conveys his complexity of emotions: satisfaction as he watches the success of his plan, surprise at his daughter's boldness, joy at their youthful happiness, sadness as he loses her to womanhood.

The production is punctuated by many such subtle, expressive moments:

Breese's face as Ariel watches Trinculo, Stefano and Caliban during their scene that is a parody of Prospero's power: She registers first amusement, then astonishment, then mischief and finally puzzlement at these poor earthbound creatures.

Lawton's delivery of the gorgeous lines, "the isle is full of noises ." It's beautifully modulated as he seems to evolve before our eyes from ape to human, finally, briefly, standing fully upright.

The clever doubling of Dave Jadico and Paul Nolan as servants and noblemen in back-to-back scenes. It deepens the indictment of the would-be assassins in both roles.

Miranda's marvelling at this "brave new world," ironically undercut by Prospero's gentle, rueful, "'Tis new to thee."

The production is filled with such lovely moments, and they add up to a charming and satisfying evening in the theater.

The Tempest

Through May 4, Lantern Theater, 10th and Ludlow sts., 215-829-9002