The Tempest images
Steven and Fran have created a script that doesn't quite track Shakespeare's play. For one thing, it has a dozen and a half songs in it (settings by Will); for another, the main plot line is darker (raising the possibility that Prospero is a criminal lunatic) and the young-lovers subplot a bit lighter.
As a setting for the action, Steven requested geometric. And Tom definitely came through. The stage will contain three cyclopean shapes. Downstage (broken rectangle in the plan) is a ramp that grows out of the island's soil into the playing space; there will be a lot of action on this unit, and given the inclination (see the preceding page), it was essential to get this piece ready in the early part of the rehearsal cycle.
You saw the skeleton of one ramp (upper right in the plan) on the preceding page; the other isn't ready yet. A gang of elemental spirits, mariners and others will be all up and down the first ramp. And through it, too--the low culvert sort of thing will appear when we put a face on the unit. The second ramp will be more craggy, with Caliban's cave passing through it.
The hand-shaped thingies represent the hand-shaped roots of trees. One, next to the first ramp, will run twigs and tendrils all over the space. The other, at lower left in the plan, is cut off to make a resting place for the sorcerer's book of charms. I hope to get some photos of the book as it develops; it's supposed to have both light and sound effects built in, together with a way it can turn its own pages.
I'm also hopeful that Tom will let me include his rendering of the set on one of these pages. Stay tuned.
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