The Tempest
Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
Othello
Hackney Empire
No accident, one guesses, that the RSC comes good in the new year with two of Shakespeare’s most racially sensitive plays in touring productions that, happily, are at once bold and deeply rewarding.
‘A Tempest roars out of Africa’, trumpeted the Telegraph’s headline to a preview of a production hailing from Cape Town’s famous Baxter Theatre. And the headline gets it right, for the identification of Prospero’s spirits with a dazzling conjuration of African tribal magic brings a buzz to the play that fits perfectly with Antony Sher’s terrific debut in the leading role. As with the RSC’s recent welcoming to Stratford of a Japanese Titus Andronicus, an Arabian Richard III and an Indian Midsummer Night’s Dream, the rediscovery of Shakespeare through foreign eyes yet again proves a revelation.
It’s a rare staging these days that doesn’t crank up The Tempest as a metaphor for colonialism, but the South African ‘truth and reconciliation’ context has produced a very fair take on the competing claims to the isle of Caliban and Ariel as indigenous blacks and Prospero who, after all, only had his role as colonialist thrust upon him by his wicked brother.
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