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by William Shakespeare, directed by Richard Monette

Stratford Festival, Festival Theatre, Stratford

May 30-Oct 28, 2005

“William Hutt’s Farewell”

The single reason to see “The Tempest” currently playing at Stratford is to see William Hutt on stage for the last time.  The 85-year-old actor has said he will retire after this season.  The play itself is sentimentally viewed as Shakespeare’s “farewell to the stage”.  Stratford has mounted the production as Hutt’s own “farewell to the stage” and some may feel they want to be there to bid Canada’s greatest actor adieu.

Yet, this is not Hutt’s greatest performance as Prospero nor is this a particularly involving production.  It is, in fact, a remount of Richard Monette’s 1999 production and ought really to be advertised as such.  Designer Mérédith Caron admits in her programme notes that she has added little that is new to this production.  Michael J. Whitfield’s fine lighting is also unchanged including the magic circle of light Prospero draws on the stage in the final act.  While Monette’s insight into the play has deepened in some areas, the drama is lifeless and the action lacks tension and forward momentum.  One feels inclined to say agree with the villain Sebastian when he declares of those on stage, “What a strange drowsiness possesses them!”

Certain flaws from the 1999 production have still not been remedied.  Monette has Miranda hang on Prospero’s every word in her first scene, even though the text makes clear she’s nodding off from having heard her father tell the same tale so often.  Except for Sebastian, the court party is so similarly attired it is hard to tell who’s who.  Indeed, why should Alonso, King of Naples, be wearing the same gown as Antonio, Duke of Milan, and his counsellor Gonzalo?  Michael Lichtefeld’s choreography for the masque of reapers and nymphs is in its bawdiness totally inappropriate for the chaste entertainment Prospero tries to foist on Ferdinand and Miranda. 

Beyond these there is a more basic failing.  Stratford productions have always viewed Prospero as an aged wise man, when, in fact he is neither.  Miranda is 15 years old.  It therefore is highly unlikely her father would be 85.  An age range of 35-45 would be more credible.  After all, Prospero is supposed to be Miranda’s father not her grandfather.  Second, no directors at Stratford have paid attention to Prospero’s claim to have raised the dead, which to an audience of Shakespeare’s time would signal that he practices necromancy, i.e., black magic not white magic.  He is not a kindly wizard but someone who has sought power, heedless whether for good or ill, through magic.

On the plus side, at least, for once, in a Stratford “Tempest” a director makes clear that Prospero has spent 12 years contemplating revenge not forgiveness.  At the start of Act 5 Prospero realizes that Ariel feels more pity for the men Prospero has tricked that Prospero has: “Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling Of their afflictions, and shall not myself, One of their kind, that relish all as sharply, Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?”  He concludes that “the rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance”.  For once, also, Prospero’s famous speech “Our revels now are ended” is not spoken as pretty set piece detached from the action, but in anger and disillusionment as it should be.  Yet, while it is a relief that Monette’s interpretation of these sections has improved and a pleasure to see Hutt enact them, the effect would have been greater if we had seen these insights had influenced Hutt’s depiction of Prospero from the beginning of the action onwards.

Hutt’s voice, his presence and his command of gesture are still magisterial.  Should he turn his head away from you, however, he is difficult to hear.  It is no pleasure to note this failure of projection in an actor who for so long was a master of the stage whisper.  Sad but true, watching Hutt in this “Tempest” is less engaging in itself than a prompt for memories of great things he has done before.

Monette has surrounded Hutt with an able if not ideal cast.  Jacob James is a distinctly non-ethereal Ariel, more like a peevish serving boy than a spirit.  Stephen Ouimette thankfully forgoes the gruff voice often employed for Caliban so that for once we can clearly understand what the character says.  Catering perhaps to the new puritanism, designer Mérédith Caron has decided to shear Caliban’s 1999 costume of its prominent genitals.  Adrienne Gould is a very enthusiastic Miranda but not quite as unworldly as she should be.  Jean-Michel LeGal is so conventionally ardent Ferdinand the character is on the verge of seeming dim.

Among the court party, Barry MacGregor is a sturdy Alonso while Bernard Hopkins emphasizes the good-heartedness over the satire in Gonzalo.  In contrast to Sean Arbuckle’s bluster as Antonio, Ian Deakin is cold and precise as the Machiavellian Sebastian.  Steven Sutcliffe is a light-headed Trinculo versus Brian Tree as a rather mean-spirited Stephano.  Thankfully, this time Monette has the pair gradate their drunkenness from tipsy to sloshed rather than appearing so loud and drunk in their first scene they have nowhere to go.

While seeing Hutt in “The Tempest” one last time has its nostalgia value, seeing him in either “No Man’s Land” in 2003 or in “Waiting for Godot” in 2004 for Soulpepper was far more exciting.  I would rather remember Hutt breaking new ground, testing himself in works he’d never done before, rather than being exhibited like a museum piece as he is in Stratford’s lifeless production.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: William Hutt as Prospero. ©David Hou.