BOXED TEMEPEST

Box Clever Theatre Company

Dukes DT3, Friday 23 March, 2007
Reviewed by Jane Sunderland

The Box Clever Theatre Company is “dedicated to the creation of inspiring contemporary theatre for young people”, as part of which it adapts Shakespeare plays for performance in schools. But although Boxed Tempest may be targeted at school students, and written specifically to highlight SATS key scenes, this doesn’t mean you have to be in Year 9 to enjoy it. As with any non-traditional (or indeed traditional) adaptation, it raises questions of what is gained and what is lost in this particular production.

What stood out for me was the value of the audience never seeing Ariel (who is, after all, a spirit), at all – even if you do have enough actors to play every single one of Shakespeare’s characters. Boxed Tempest has just three young actors, who play Prospero/Trinculo (Stephen John Holgate), Ferdinand/Caliban (Edward Day), and Miranda (Emily Bruce).

Much of the action happens off-stage, but we know what is going on through Prospero, whose ‘Art’ allows him to hear everything (including the conspiracy to murder him).

The play is scripted by Artistic Director Michael Wicherek and the language of the play is indeed, as the blurb promises, “a seamless combination of original texts and modern-day speech”, but which also maintains a poetic rhythm. This combination is delivered faultlessly by the actors.

The modern-day speech is very much youth language (Prospero describes Caliban as “seriously gross” and tells us “I can do storm”), so there is a risk of it becoming dated, but presumably the company has this monitored – and I did wonder about whether the celebration dance scene would be a little cringe-making for teenage audiences.
But there is an interesting use of meta-language: Prospero reflects “I love that line ‘Those are pearls that were his eyes’” – which, believe me, works.

The set consists of two huge iron or steel circles intersecting each other, globe-like, straddled by girders, which the actors use to chase and run away from each other with great agility and, it has to be said, balance. In the question session following the performance this structure was linked with the journey motif in the play, in particularly Prospero’s progression to forgiveness.

Miranda and Ferdinand enjoy each other’s new found company

DT3 wasn’t full, but not far off, and the audience was clearly enthusiastic. Hardly anyone took advantage of the five minute break between performance and the Question-Answer session to disappear, and the diverse and unpredictable questions kept coming for a good fifteen minutes. The actors dealt with these well and constructively.

Though they explained why the company was called ‘Box Clever’, a name which is associated with streetwise intelligence, they couldn’t explain why Caliban, unlike Ariel and Alfonso, is neither released nor forgiven at the end. But neither could anyone else, so we were all left pleasurably pondering.

My sense was very much that the teenagers in the audience appreciated hearing the actors come out of role and talk about the play in an accessible, informal and entertaining (they continued to be actors) manner.

A company with these objectives runs the risk of being accused of misrepresenting or otherwise doing a mis-service to the Bard, and/or patronising teenagers. But no-one in the audience seemed at all patronised. And if Shakespeare had been with us in DT3 on Friday, I’m sure he would have been thoroughly entertained.

© Jane Sunderland 28/3/07

Photos by Benedict Johnson

Useful links

BBC ‘Bitesize’ revision of The Tempest (KS3)

KS3 required scenes from The Tempest

More on The Tempest