Fall 2006

 

directed by Danielle Muehlenbein and Dave Strichartz

 

In our Spring '06 product of The Tempest, directed by Danielle Muehlenbein and Dave Strichartz, Shakespeare's characters present an astounding level of dynamism in a short period of times. It is easy to see that the "good guys" are not always so good, and the "bad guys" often deserve sympathy. While Prospero, the protagonist, has been wronged in the past, her way of making things right can be problematic. She enslaves the people of an island on which she has recently made her home, misleads Ferdinand and his mother Alonso into thinking that the other is dead, and must be convinced by the un-human Ariel that she must pardon her transgressors rather than remaining angry. These dualities entice the audience to re-evaluate their expectations of the characters. By reversing the genders of the two main characters--Ariel and Prospero--we wanted to show that preconceptions and stereotypes can be wrong and often what we see when we look beyond our first notions is far more interesting.