MALE READERS: HOW do you hope to look and sound when you are 80 years old?
If you want to see an ideal specimen, check out Christopher Plummer’s leading role of Prospero in the Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s The Tempest before it closes on Sept. 12: a handsome, chiseled face; lithe body; and a perfect, clear voice which treats each exquisite, powerful word like Rodin chipping away at his The Thinker.
He is masterful, and one of our era’s true masters of the art of acting and speaking. And many of his comically timed phrasings make this the funniest Prospero I’ve seen. Yet his rendition of such lines as “We are such stuff / As dreams are made on; and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep” will tear at your heart.
The rest of the production is far from perfect, but there are enough moments to make for a superior theatrical experience and one far more satisfying than the late William Hutt’s handling of the same role, several years ago.
Des McAnuff ’s direction is highly creative and intelligent, aided beautifully by most of Paul Tazewell’s striking costumes and Michael Roth’s often-eerie music.
And there are a number of magical moments in this striking production — the last vision before the single intermission, inarguably — that will burn into your memory.
The plot should be familiar: a dozen years earlier, Plummer’s Duke of Milan has his position usurped by his brother and is banished to an island (the recently discovered Bermuda, most scholars believe) with his three-year-old daughter Miranda (Trish Lindstrom).
A magician of great gifts, Prospero causes a tempest to wreck a ship carrying his betrayer Antonio and others, manipulates the King of Naples’s son, Ferdinand (Gareth Potter), to fall for his own beloved child as the audience is caught up in a whirl of some of the finest poetry of all time.
No, the entire production is not perfect: Dion Johnstone’s essential role of the savage Caliban lacks the required malevolence; Bruce Dow’s Trinculo is disappointingly fey. But, along with the remarkable gifts of Mr. Plummer, what almost redeems the entire, brief play is Geraint Wyn Davies’s Stephano, the butler.
In addition, closest to Plummer’s portrayal of Prospero in majesty, is the thrilling, tiny (is she much over four feet?) Julyana Soelistyo as Prospero’s beloved “spirit”Ariel, whose newly granted freedom is more satisfying than the engagement of the young lovers and the heartbreaking growth of Plummer’s revengeturned- forgiveness at the finale.
Ms. Soelistyo has a voice thrice her size, moves and even flies like the spirit she plays, and the love between her and her master is palpable.
Musical aficionados set for a trip to the South Pacific When presented only decently, the great Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific can be embarrassing, but reviews of the Lincoln Centre production in April 2008 filled me with optimism. This is the same production by the gifted Bartlett Sher that Aubrey Dan is bringing to Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre from Aug. 12 to Sept. 5.
It is a stunning study of the post-war world of the late 1940s: its “cock-eyed” optimism, its hope, its racial intolerance. The music is some of the best that Richard Rodgers ever composed, and Hammerstein’s lyrics are unforgettable.
Bravo Aubrey Dan for bringing this production to one of the best theatres in our city.
