As Prospero, Henry has firm grasp on her magic
The Tempest Written by William Shakespeare. Directed by Antoni Cimolino. Until Oct. 26 at the Festival Theatre, 55 Queen St., Stratford. StratfordFestival.ca or 1-800-567-1600. When the official opening night of the Stratford Festival’s 2018 season on Monday, May 28 was cancelled due to a bomb threat at the theatre, an image made the rounds on Canadian Theatre Twitter. It showed Martha Henry, in plain clothes, walking away from her foiled opening as the festival’s first woman to play Prospero — Shakespeare’s final hero — still using her character’s famous magical staff as she went.
Despite a thankfully empty and deeply unfunny prank, this was Henry’s moment and she was going to own it. Nearly two weeks later, Stratford artistic director Antoni Cimolino’s production of The Tempest finally got its official opening performance, and Henry got to prove that that wasn’t just a great photo op — she really is owning her turn as Prospero, the former Duchess and sorceress who was betrayed by her brother, Antonio (Graham Abbey), and shipwrecked on a magical island with her daughter, Miranda (Mamie Zwettler).
Henry’s esteem at the festival after 43 seasons — the first of which cast her as Miranda against William Hutt as Prospero (the first of his two cracks at the role) — shows in her Prospero, which is so comfortable with the language that, with a casual and relaxed delivery (even daring to mumble a few words, God forbid), she actually builds upon its strengths. Her Prospero is weary, almost bored by how easy it is to charm her way through her days on the island. Her facility with her powers has numbed her to their effects on those around her, as she sends Miranda off to sleep with an offhanded flick of her fingers, and cruelly dismisses her spritely servant Ariel (André Morin)’s desire for freedom — “Dost thou forget from what a torment I did free thee?” from the tyranny of the witch Sycorax, mother of the half manhalf fish monster Caliban (Michael Blake), she asks, and then answers herself, “Thou dost.”
Even transcending the poetry of Shakespeare’s text, Henry delivers the physicality, timing, cynicism and humour of a woman who is tired — tired of her obvious skill, tired of having to wield it, tired of arguing for her particular place in a world dominated by men. Nevertheless, she persisted — because Miranda survived the shipwreck with her. And Henry’s moments of tenderness almost always concern Miranda. At first she keeps a cynical distance from her plot for revenge against Antonio and the nobles that helped him overthrow her — observing new lovers Miranda and Ferdinand (Sebastian Heins), son of King Alonso (David Collins), from above, or teasing the doe-eyed innocence of her daughter’s paramour — the release of this burden softens Henry’s edge, lets her relax, and finally show affection for the creatures she had to once view as subjects.
Following this line of thinking, Cimolino emphasizes the power of the island in the second act, unleashing puppetry, lighting effects (by Michael Walton) and otherworldly costumes (costume and set design by Bretta Gerecke, which requires kudos for Caliban’s scaly, webbed amphibious arm) on the spirits Juno (Lucy Peacock), Iris (Chick Reid) and Ceres (Alexis Gordon), plus a chorus of nymphs (putting the Birmingham Conservatory students to work). Though sometimes losing the plot underneath flashes of technical excess, it certainly proves why Prospero would be feeling particularly touched by the island’s gifts as she prepares to leave her own magical trappings behind.
So this might clearly be Henry’s moment, but the rest of production is embarrassed with fine performances from Abbey as Antonio and André Sills as his partner in treachery, Sebastian — their tip-toeing around a potential murder plot of the king is a fine dance, as is Morin’s careful orchestration of it as Ariel, a sensitive spirit who’s much more aware of the responsibility his powers hold than his Master.
A highlight is the trio of Blake as Caliban, Stephen Ouimette as the fool Trinculo, and Tom McCamus as the drunkard Stephano — who conspire to kill Prospero and form their own haphazard, wine-fuelled government on the island. Paired against Heins’s hilarious sendup of a male ingénue in Ferdinand, only newcomer Mamie Zwettler seems out of her element with a flowery, if a little flat, Miranda.
A scare may have delayed this production’s opening night, but seeing it now is a joy.