A timeless storm sweeps again

THE TEMPEST kept the promise that the cyclone did not.

That, of course, is the simplest way of saying it. Though the tongue was unfamiliar, the accents harsher than we are used to, The Tempest was a `Show' in the entire sense of the term.

``You will listen to German sound, different from normal English form'', warned Pit Holzwarth, director of Bremer Shakespeare Company, Germany. And Annette Leday, the French connection of the play hinted at the Indian participation, Keralite folk dancers. But nothing any of them said prepared one for what was to come, for the highly stylised presentation of Shakespeare's The Tempest.

It was a challenge to present The Tempest, set in the age of high colonialism, in a post colonial milieu. However, the universality of the Bard's approach or the tact of the performers managed to create an interface between several cross cultural factors on a bare stage. Predictably, Indian dancers played the yet-to-be- tamed spirits of the magical island, and the Westerners- the tamers.

Remarkably, the island was recreated abutting a wild, tempestuous sea, without the aid of any props. A little stylisation of movement ensured that the undulations of the sea, the whipping of the breeze were all conveyed by the actors themselves.

Drawing from the roots of traditional performances, both Indian and Western, the theatre combined the elements of drama and dance, fusing them into a complex adaptation of The Tempest. The movement between these two forms is pretty seamless, gliding from one apparent technique to another.

As Indian folk (not Kathakali, Leday insists) lapses into Western rhythms, the scenes shift from the colonised to the colonisers.

Special mention must be made of the abiding Rangoli painter, Kalamandalam Haridas Kurup, who flinched not even as the actors stomped all over the stage.

Sitting on his own, at the extreme right hand corner of the stage, he used natural powders to paint the pictorial crystalisation of Prospero's magic power. Though initially he had the audience puzzled, it was with a collective groan that they watched the `kolam' being erased by Prospero.

The image must by needs be destroyed, as Prospero sets free the spirits of the island and relinquishes his powers.

The sub titles in English flashed above the stage were definitely helpful at times, though in the end it really did not matter what language the actors were speaking in.

The play did have its moments of banality, but then trust slapstick to revive interest like nothing else! The scenes with Trinkulo (played by Martin Schwanda), Caliban (Robert Brandt) and Stefano (Christian Dieterle) got the audience interested again, the horseplay evoking full guffaws.

Sadanam Bhassi as Ariel and Erik Robbander as Prospero were convincing in their own ways - the latter raving and ranting and the sprite with its silence and dances.

What the dancers aimed to do was to create an `intellectual stage approach' to Shakespeare, Holzwarth and Leday say. Intellectual it might have been, arty it definitely was.

In its sixth performance in the country, The Tempest was well received, though the seats gradually emptied out during the performance.

That probably had to do with the foreign language of delivery. But then, when did language ever manage to tie down a Shakespeare creation?

By Ramya Kannan

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