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| Carol Kane, Sam Waterston. |
The second and last
attempt by artistic director/producer Joseph Papp, during his tenure there, to use the smaller of Lincoln
Center’s two theatres for Shakespeare revivals. The one that
followed, Macbeth, closed in previews.
The Tempest was welcomed with some
excellent notices, but a few critics were passionately against it. The
economical production, using a company of thirteen (some with names still
popular today) to play all the roles, was designed by Santo Loquasto to look
like a yellow sand-covered Caribbean island, magically lit by Jennifer Tipton. Prospero (Sam Waterston, who would do the role again many years later, in
Central Park) and Miranda (Carol Kane) were dressed in ragged clothing
suggestive of beachcombers, while the shipwrecked characters wore
Elizabethan garb.
As Clive Barnes
viewed it, director Edward Berkeley sought to stress “the common humanity and
the endearing eccentricity of man.” Prospero was in his early thirties, his
hair sun-bleached, his temper monumental. There was no hint of the
conventional, patriarchal Prospero, such as when Waterston did the part in
2015. The rest of the cast also was somewhat offbeat, with Christopher Walken
as Sebastian, Randy Kim as Trinculo, and Jaime Sanchez as Caliban, and the
decidedly earthbound Christopher Allport as Ariel. The last was the hardest for the critics to buy.
“This is the only Tempest I have ever seen that has
brought me within feeling distance of this elusive play,” remarked Walter Kerr.
He admitted that it had faults, especially a masque scene that was like “a lead
balloon.” Edith Oliver was enthralled by “this original, audacious and
imaginative production,” and Barnes said it worked “extremely well.” John
Simon, though, was appalled: “It certainly isn’t a vulgar little farce to
be crassly demystified by loutish histriones.” He loved the set, lighting,
and comedy of Trinculo and Stephano (Richard Ramos), however; for the rest he had nothing but contempt.
While others hailed
Waterston’s Prospero—Oliver called it “an astonishing performance that never
loses its urgency”)—Simon discarded it as “one of the most scandalous
performances” he had ever witnessed.
Next up: Terraces
