See Media for ordering the DVD. Here’s a sampler:

In the flurry of performance, I’ve been neglecting the posts here. Will start up again.

Our TEMPEST is coming up to its fifth and final weekend, going very well. Shooting video of every performance for dvd editing, and it’s truly humbling, in starting the edit, to see every minute of the show, 107 minutes, 14 performances to date, and how !#%$!!X%!!! far away from “perfection” we are. I recommend this process highly as an
essential, though painful, learning experience. Thankfully, our audience doesn’t see it that way. As a friend pointed out, we see the two media with entirely different sets of eyes.

We’ve had lots of wonderful written responses. But this one (prefaced by very effusive positives) evoked some thought, and I wanted to share it.

>I did not like Caliban - that is I didn’t like the puppet representation.
>I wish you had made him as evil and other worldly as was Ariel —
>an imaginative sprite and other worldly. The Caliban
>puppet reinforced that great myth of the US white society: that men
>of color are evil, bad, etc. I do regret that you chose that configuration.

•••

My response:

Dear ______—

Thanks for all your responses, this included. I’d like to follow up on this Caliban question, as I feel it’s a serious and provocative one. I don’t want to pass it off lightly.

“Evil and otherworldly” I can’t see. In some ways, he’s a metaphorical contrast to Ariel. But to me the power of the character is that he’s totally concrete: He’s born on this island to an exiled Algerian woman accused of witchcraft; he’s deformed; he’s in his late twenties; he was adopted into Prospero’s care, was a companion of Miranda, and felt love and tenderness for the first time in his life; he did something, details not specified, that Prospero saw as seeking to “violate the honor of my child”; he was enslaved and continues to be subjected to systematic torture; he’s filled with rage; and, like Ariel, he desperately longs for freedom. Those facts don’t add up to
“otherworldly.” He has to be given a real and specific face. Nor do I think they add up to an embodiment of pure evil, though indeed they’ve had the same effect that oppression often works on people: they’ve made him a rage-filled, dangerous, easily-corrupted creature. And one who, heartbreakingly, still retains some humanity, a sense of beauty, and a dream of something better.

I don’t think that nexus of traits is untrue to life. Prospero likewise is an amalgam of extreme contradictions, as is, for that matter, Ariel, combining that Robin-Goodfellow playfulness with the implacable, amoral force of an Elemental, and only at the end showing a startling glimmer of human empathy.

But I realize that doesn’t speak to your main point: that making him non-Caucasian reinforces a false stereotype. And this is a huge problem in contemporary stagings of masterpieces from a culture that saw “blackness,” deformity, and illegitimacy all as evidence of an evil nature; that was deeply anti-Semitic; that saw inherited hierarchies as God-given; that saw the treatment meted out to Kate in SHREW an occasion for merriment; etc. So a fantasy-style Caliban might be a means of getting around this. But to me, that’s not possible without significantly rewriting the play. Likewise, though I agree with the political intent of it, I feel that attempts to reverse the equation, to suggest Caliban as the wronged but noble-hearted native under Prospero’s imperialist heel, just flatten the play - it’d require a total rewrite to work, and that’s been done though I think not very successfully.

As a theatre artist, I’m not able personally to avoid ugly elements in characters who are at-risk for “stereotype.” If I create a generic, two-dimensional evil black man, swishy gay, dumb blonde, fanatic Arab or greedy Jew - whether as realism or as farce - then I’m being both stupid and irresponsible. But if those are concrete elements in a multi-faceted character, then I feel I’m reflecting an image that helps us see these “types” as real individuals. And that’s responsible artistry.

So the best I can do for Caliban is just to bring out the reality of the contradictions in his character and in his relations with Prospero, with Miranda, and with his drunken would-be liberators. If those aren’t very specific and clear, then I agree that it’s possible for the audience to jump to seeing only the stereotype. And as in innumerable other challenges of the play, we’re maybe only half successful. Our 90 hrs. of rehearsal should have been double that. As with our puppet MACBETH, which we had in touring repertory over a span of 15 years, at this stage there were elements we were only beginning to explore. It’s a matter of constantly honing in on the clarity of moment-by-moment truth.

So, just offering this for thought. And again, I’m grateful to you for raising this provocative question. If I have a chance to restage this TEMPEST in the future, I’m pretty sure to stay with my design and interpretation of Caliban. But that moment-by-moment evolution of the character will definitely be informed by serious tussle with the issue you raised. Many thanks.

•••

And received a very gracious response. Definitely this issue should be addressed in the study guide we prepare for the school tour.

•••

I’ve been startled by the response to a particular moment in the play: a kiss between Ferdinand and Miranda at the end of 3:1. A number of people have expressed rapture at it. Stage and movie kisses are a dime a dozen, and young love—unless it’s tragic—is more often than not an object of amusement. It’s very well played by the puppeteers, and probably their necessary care in making sure the puppets’ lips don’t bonk translates as the tenderness of Miranda’s first kiss. But what is it that makes that moment such an object of wonder?

My thought is that it’s an indicator of the power of the puppet medium. The very artifice of it brings about what Brecht termed the Verfremdungseffekt, making us see this thing we take for granted as “strange,” as something new. Prospero’s aside, “At the first sight they have chang’d eyes,” extends to our eyes as well.

Could it be done as movingly by live actors? Probably, but I’ve never quite seen it have that effect. The only comparable moment that comes to mind was in our staging of THE WINTER’S TALE with Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, the moment when Leontes (Whit Maclaughlin) took the hand of the statue of Hermoine (Laurie McCants) and whispered, “Oh, she’s warm.” There, Shakespeare likewise has used a Verfremdungseffekt—the fantasy of the statue coming alive—to focus us with almost unbearable emotion on that moment, the miracle of renewal.

Peace—
Conrad

Some moments of relaxation between weekends, though with many costume repairs and small lighting adjustments. There’s very little time for notes, but I manage, after watching videos of each performance, to crank out a mass of notes about once a week. Right now, I feel the actors are assimilating and learning to trust the puppets, to keep the energy up without pushng so hard, especially in the comic scenes, which are flowing much better.

I feel I’m registering pretty well as Prospero and startng to find the necessary modulatoins. In the long storytelling of the first act, I feel there must be a passionate energy driving him, or else the scenes are flat exposition. Yet a half-hour of blast-furnace energy will destroy all rapport with the audience. Fnding that roller-coaster rhythm is elusive, but starting to happen. Only once in six performances have I played it without line glitches, and that’s a consequence of insecurity in the overall thru-line.

Some responses. No press reviews—that’s common here—and one radio review is just being transcribed. But these are from audience members:

•••

• The puppet stage itself is a marvelous sight and also very practical, allowing many areas for the 3/4th lifesize puppets to perform within. It is draped with fabric painted in golden clay colors, twisted and turned, creating the framed playing areas. Short familiar quotes and words from Shakespeare are painted on the fabric in large “Olde English” script.

• My take on Prospero’s gigantic mid-life crisis is that he is functioning at the throat chakra, the crossroads between good and evil. Which path will he choose? The throat chakra is also the area from which speech cometh, and Prospero rages and verbalizes in the best Shakesperian manner. Great stuff, Mooncalf, great stuff!

• Something rare and thrilling happened for me as I viewed this production, something I seek at every puppet show I attend. The puppet Miranda came “alive” for me. Was it a combination of her facial sculpting and exquisite right-on manipulation, or that her love glow threw enchantment over her? All of the above. I occasionally amused myself by trying to see her again as a puppet, not a real woman, but there was no turning her back into a puppet.

• I attended The Tempest last evening and found it a wonder! I must say that puppet kiss to end the first half was . . . mmmmm! And the soundtrack, beautifully integrated. The set, simple yet extraordinary.

• You seem to be born for Shakespeare, and you and your puppet likeness were totally magical. Thank you so much for bringing such a unique and beautiful production to our humble Sonoma County.

•Conrad was sensational as Prospero! With the puppets, the arms and especially the hands become huge vehicles of emotional expression, and even the inanimate masks seem to change expression depending on their positions, the angles at which they’re held and the lighting. Many delightful and imaginative uses of shadow-screens, overdubs, and other theatrical resources; and whatever puppets can do than humans can’t, they do, and to our amazement and delight!

•Fabulous and exciting production! Congratulations!!

• I feel privileged to have such thrilling, innovative, soul-touching theatre right here in our little town!

• Thanks for the amazing work . . . dedication and mastery.

• Fabulous.

• Astonishing/compelling.

•••

More to come. We’ve started to do nightly talk-backs wth the audience, and response is very good. One woman asked a curious question: “What do you think Shakespeare would have thought of this production?”

Don’t remember what I said, but I’ve thought about that some more. What’s meant, I guess, is how faithful it is to the author’s intentions, and of course that’s unanswerable. My feeling is that the only negative feeling he’d have had—other than all the notes give to the other actors and to myself—is that he wasn’t getting any royalties from it. I think it’s “faithful” on three counts: (1) That character and scene interpretation are based very concretely in the text. One could certainly quarrel with them, but there’s a reason for everything. (2) The elements of “innovation” are really no different in kind than the enormous amalgam of theatrical techniques from multiple traditions that were part of the English stage of 1611. (3) The fullness of gesture and vocal expression that this form of puppetry allows is much closer to the style of the great actors he wrote for than we normally find in Shakespearean productions today.

Coming up to four more performances this weekend. Dreading the exhaustion, but enormously looking forward to the challenge.

—Conrad