Confessing Evangelical

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I went to see a production of The Tempest by the wonderful outdoor theatre company, Illyria (see right), whom we've been following for a number of years (the Illyria website reproduces a couple of reviews of the production - I agree wholeheartedly with the first of these).

Like most of Illyria's productions, the show manages to combine anarchic, bawdy comedy - unlike many productions, Illyria never cut the "below stairs" scenes, and make the most of Shakespeare's (often surprisingly rude) jokes - with a sensitive and intelligent treatment of the "serious" aspects to the play, and some excellent performances. The best programmes in the business, too, particularly Oliver Gray's "director's notes" (the website includes his notes for Romeo & Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, and As You Like It).

One memorable moment in The Tempest came during Ariel's song in Act 1 Scene 2, where the production captured perfectly the numinous quality of the poetry of the second stanza (surely some of the most beautiful poetry ever written):

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
           Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them -- Ding-dong, bell.

At the end of the play, the release of Ariel was especially moving: Ariel, the air-spirit whose faithfulness to Prospero cannot mask his desperation to be freed from servitude, drinks a potion given to him (with great tenderness) by Prospero, and collapses into Prospero's wheelchair; and at that moment, a dozen dark- and light-blue balloons (matching Ariel's costume) are released into the air and float up into the sky...