More storyboard. Act One, Scene Two, first section. Essential elements:
* Very strong feeling between Miranda and Prospero, but she’s rigidly schooled — the norm is a great formality between them.
* Miranda’s distress at the outset includes an element of repressed rage at her father for raising the storm.
* Prospero must recover from the severe drain of energy from his magic while controlling the pent-up rage in his telling the story.
* Robe and book have a magical presence and are in a visible location throughout the play. Book’s pages are sheets of mirrored mylar.
* Should be nothing plaintive about Miranda. The revelations reveal a hideous world to her, and she’s deeply shaken.
* Prospero’s repeated questions about her listening stem from her distracted emotion, not from boredom or inattention. They’re also part of his own struggle for control.
* Prospero dons and remove magical robe. He’s a full-size actor who also has a puppet replica of himself. The other puppet figures see only the puppet Prospero; only Ariel sees his live human form.
* Memories are reproduced in shadow enactment, but blurred, shifting in form.

1:2A
THE MAGICIAN’S OBEDIENT DAUGHTER PLEADS FOR HIM TO WITHHOLD HIS MAGIC, LEADING HIM TO REVEAL A LONG-HELD SECRET THAT SHAKES HER TO THE CORE.

1 – Music change. Shifting colors on video. Lights up on Prospero, far R, back to us. He is slumped, exhausted. He starts to remove his cloak, then halts.

2 – Miranda appears, far L. She kneels formally, not looking at him but reaching to him. He remains frozen, back to us. She is deeply shaken by what she’s seen, pleading with repressed anger for him to undo the damage.
>>>Miranda: If by your Art, my dearest father, you have
>>>Put the wild waters in this Roar, allay them.
>>>The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
>>>But that the Sea, mounting to the welkin’s cheek,
>>>Dashes the fire out. O! I have suffer’d
>>>With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel,
>>>Who had, no doubt, some noble creatures in her,
>>>Dash’d all to pieces. O! the cry did knock
>>>Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish’d.
>>>Had I been any God of power, I would
>>>Have sunk the Sea within the Earth, before
>>>It should the good Ship so have swallow’d and
>>>The Souls within her.
>>>Prospero: Be collected:
>>>No more amazement. Tell your piteous heart
>>>There’s no harm done.
>>>Miranda: O, woe the day!
>>>Prospero: No harm.

3 – She rushes to him. As she comes, he turns, holding a puppet Prospero, exactly in the same image. She embraces the puppet Prospero.

>>>I have done nothing but in care of thee,–
>>>Of thee, my dear one! thee, my daughter!–who
>>>Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing
>>>Of whence I am: nor that I am more better
>>>Than Prospero, Master of a full poor cell,
>>>And thy no greater Father.
>>>Miranda: More to know
>>>Did never meddle with my thoughts.
>>>Prospero: ‘Tis time
>>>I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,
>>>And pluck my magic garment from me. So:
>>>Lie there, my art.

4 – He disengages the puppet from her, removes the magical garment from his shoulder. Sounds of Spirits crying, echoing. Light changes. She holds garment — very heavy. Two Spirits appear, take it from her, hang it on a low tree trunk that supports his magical book. Miranda looks about, puzzled.

5 – The human Prospero holds her formally, both looking front.
>>> Wipe thou thine eyes.
>>>The direful spectacle of the wrack, which touch’d
>>>The very virtue of compassion in thee,
>>>I have with such provision by mine art
>>>So safely order’d, there’s no soul lost–
>>>No, not so much perdition as a hair
>>>Befall to any creature in the vessel
>>>Which thou saw’st sink. Sit down;
>>>For thou must now know farther.
>>>Miranda: You have often
>>>Begun to tell me what I am, but stopp’d,
>>>And left me to a bootless inquisition,
>>>Concluding, ‘Stay; not yet.’

>>>Prospero: The hour’s now come,
>>>Obey and be attentive. Canst thou remember
>>>A time before we came unto this cell?

6 – He passes his hand in front of her face, then places his hand on her cheek. Video images: blurred faces, merging.
>>>Miranda: Certainly, sir, I can.
>>>Prospero: By what? by any other house or person that
Hath kept with thy remembrance?
>>>Miranda: ‘Tis far off;
>>>And rather like a dream. Had I not
>>>Four or five women once that tended me?
>>>Prospero: Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it
>>>That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else
>>>In the dark backward and abysm of time?

Passes his hand again, touches her cheek. Pause. Images fade.
>>>Miranda: Naught else.

7 – He turns away, feeling his magic weakened, reaches to touch cloak, then to her:
>>>Prospero: Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,
>>>Thy father was the Duke of Milan and
>>>A prince of power.
She focuses front, as if envisioning. Shadow image of Prospero as Duke on screen, sense of power. Strong kaleidoscopic spider web patterns, shifting. Very rapid dialogue:

>>>Miranda: Sir, are not you my father?
>>>Prospero: Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
>>>She said thou wast my daughter — and thy father
>>>Was Duke of Milan — and his only heir
>>>And princess–
>>>Miranda: O, the heavens!
>>>What foul play had we that we came from thence?
>>>Or blessed was’t we did?
>>>Prospero: Both, both, my girl:
>>>By foul play, as thou say’st, were we heav’d thence;
>>>But blessedly holp hither.
>>>Miranda: O! my heart bleeds. Please you, further.

8 – Video: flames. New shadow: Antonio, villainous. Broad, emblematic mime. Shadow of Prospero reading, neglectful of duty.

>>>Prospero: My brother and thy uncle, call’d Antonio–
>>>I pray thee, mark me,–that a brother should
>>>Be so perfidious!–he whom next thyself,
>>>Of all the world I lov’d, and to him put
>>>The manage of my state; as at that time,
>>>Through all the sovereignties it was the first,
>>>And Prospero the prime Duke; and for the liberal arts,
>>>Without a parallel: those being all my study,
>>>The Government I cast upon my brother,
>>>And to my State grew stranger, being transported
>>>And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle–
Rapt in his own rage, not looking at Miranda:
>>>Dost thou attend me?
>>>Miranda: Sir, most heedfully.
>>>Prospero: Being once perfected how to grant suits,
>>>How to deny them, who t’advance, new created
>>>The creatures that were mine,

9 – Courtiers in shadow approach Antonio shadow; he grants favors. Bizarre postures of homage.

>>>Or else new form’d’em: set all hearts i’ the state
>>>To what tune pleas’d his ear; that now he was
>>>The ivy which had hid my princely trunk,
>>>And suck’d my essence out.– Thou attend’st?
>>>Miranda: Good sir! I do.
>>>Prospero: I pray thee, mark me:

10 – Prospero shadow in deep study. Antonio lurking behind, enlarging.

>>>I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
>>>To closeness and the bettering of my mind,
>>>In my false brother
>>>Awak’d an evil nature; which had, indeed no limit,
>>>A confidence sans bound. He did believe
>>>He was indeed the duke. Hence his ambition growing,–
>>>Dost thou hear?
>>>Miranda: Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.
>>>Prospero: To have no screen between this part he play’d
>>>And them he play’d it for, he needs will be
>>>Absolute Milan. Me, poor man,–my library
>>>Was Dukedom large enough: of temporal royalties
>>>He thinks me now incapable, confederates,–
Shadows of Alonso and Antonio, reaching over Prospero shadow for handshake and homage.
>>>So dry he was for sway,– wi’ the king of Naples
>>>To give him annual tribute, do him homage;
>>>Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend
>>>The Dukedom, yet unbow’d,–alas, poor Milan!–
>>>To most ignoble stooping.
Antonio kneels to Alonso. Prospero shadow still lost in book.
>>>Miranda: O the heavens!
>>>Prospero: Mark his condition and the event; then tell me
>>>If this might be a brother.
>>>Miranda: I should sin
>>>To think but nobly of my grandmother:
>>>Good wombs have borne bad sons.
>>>Prospero: Now the condition.
>>>This King of Naples, being an enemy
>>>To me inveterate, hearkens my Brother’s suit;
Sudden swirl of shadow figures. Rapid movement back and forth. Soldiers appear with spears. Multiple layers of shadows, flashing searchlights, continuing. Prospero shadow moving back and forth in confusion.
>>>Which was, that he
>>>Should presently extirpate me and mine
>>>Out of the dukedom, and confer fair Milan,
>>>With all the honours on my brother: whereon,
>>>A treacherous Army levied, one midnight
>>>Fated to the purpose did Antonio open
>>>The gates of Milan; and, i’ the dead of darkness,
>>>The ministers for the purpose hurried thence
>>>Me and thy crying self.

11 – Image coalesces to tableau of expulsion: Soldiers holding Prospero with baby bundle in arms. Sound of crying infant.

>>>Miranda: Alack, for pity!
>>>I, not rememb’ring how I cried out then,
>>>Will cry it o’er again. Wherefore did they not
>>>That hour destroy us?
>>>Prospero: Well demanded, wench:
>>>My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not,
>>>So dear the love my people bore me, nor set
>>>A mark so bloody on the business; but
>>>With colours fairer painted their foul ends.
Superimposed shadow of boat, Prospero shadow holding it as he enlarges and contracts (mobile light source overlaid with storm video).
>>>In brief, they hurried us aboard a bark,
>>>Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepar’d
>>>A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg’d,
>>>Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
>>>Instinctively have quit it: there they hoist us,
>>>To cry to the sea that roar’d to us; to sigh
>>>To the winds whose pity, sighing back again,
>>>Did us but loving wrong.
>>>Miranda: Alack! what trouble
>>>Was I then to you!
Image of baby’s face, boat shadow crossing it.
>>>Prospero: O, a Cherubin
>>>Thou wast, that did preserve me! Thou didst smile,
>>>Infused with a fortitude from heaven,
>>>When I have deck’d the sea with drops full salt,
>>>Which rais’d in me a stomach, to bear up
>>>Against what should ensue.

12 – Shadows fade. Human Prospero touches Miranda. Then kneels by her, embracing.

>>>Miranda: How came we ashore?
>>>Prospero: By Providence divine.
>>>Some food we had and some fresh water that
>>>A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,
>>>Out of his Charity did give us; with
>>>Rich garments, linens, stuffs, and necessaries,
>>>Which since have steaded much; and of his gentleness,
>>>Knowing I lov’d my books, he furnish’d me
>>>From mine own Library with volumes that
>>>I prize above my Dukedom.
>>>Miranda: Would I might
>>>But ever see that man!
>>>Prospero: Now I arise:

13 – Sharp change. He rises, bringing up the puppet Prospero. Very formal distance, not looking at her. She turns to him, kneels, acknowledging obeisance.

>>>Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.
>>>Here in this island we arriv’d; and here
>>>Have I, thy Schoolmaster, made thee more profit
>>>Than other Princess can, that have more time
>>>For vainer hours and Tutors not so careful.
>>>Miranda: Heavens thank you for’t! And now, I pray you, sir,–
>>>For still ’tis beating in my mind,–your reason
>>>For raising this sea-storm?
>>>Prospero: Know thus far forth.
Suddenly he is stirred by anger. Broad gestures of puppet.
>>>By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,
>>>Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies
>>>Brought to this shore; and by my prescience
>>>I find my zenith doth depend upon
>>>A most auspicious star, whose influence
>>>If now I court not but omit, my fortunes
>>>Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions;

14 – Sharp gesture of finality. The puppet Prospero disappears as the human Prospero rises behind Miranda, passes his hand over her face.

>>>Thou art inclin’d to sleep; ’tis a good dulness,
>>>And give it way;–I know thou canst not choose.–
Miranda is charmed to sleep.

And I’m off to bed as well.
Peace & joy–
Conrad