Newspaper Article

In Shakespeare's Timeless 'Tempest,' What's Past Is Prologue

Carson, Susannah

2010

Overview

In Julie Taymor's film adaptation of The Tempest, Shakespeare's most magical and majestic role -- a role traditionally played by a man -- is played by Helen Mirren. Prospero becomes Prospera. The Tempest is magical in its matter, and it is magical in another sense, too. Generally regarded to be Shakespeare's last play, it is thought to be his farewell to the theater. Because we know so little of Shakespeare beyond his plays, The Tempest is made to do the extra work of metaphorical autobiography. According to tradition and wishful-thinking, Prospero, whose magic comes from his books, stands in for Shakespeare, whose magic is in his plays. The disgruntled slave Caliban says of Prospero: \"I must obey: his art is of such pow'r.\" Similarly, we are moved to say that Shakespeare's \"art is of such pow'r\" because his plays, as Yale University professor Harold Bloom says, have influenced, and even invented, a great deal of our current modes of expression, thought and being. In other words, many of the issues Shakespeare raises for his male characters, and many of the issues Shakespeare himself seems to have confronted, are now just as relevant and interesting to women. When Mirren takes up Prospero's books, she is not making a statement; she is simply speaking the lines of The Tempest. Similarly, when she takes up his staff, she is simply stepping into a role that it now makes sense for her to fill. She is giving us -- all of us, but especially women -- just a little bit more of Shakespeare than we had before.

• Publisher: Valley News
• Subject: Mirren, Helen / Taymor, Julie