My version of an island vacation

So, I’m re-reading The Tempest in preparation for the run that will be going on at the Performing Arts Center. I’m that dedicated as an usher. Or that big of a GEEK. Tomato, tomahto. Either way, it’s not that onerous. I’m that peculiar variety of geek that actually has fun looking at footnotes. “What the hell is “glistering”? Ah. Interesting.”

The Tempest is really a great example of why Shakespeare has lasted so long. There are so many ways that the story can be looked at that it can seem eerily appropriate to your time (no matter what that time might be). Where 50 years ago, The Tempest was seen as a story about the evils of colonialism and enslavement by The Man, today it could really ring true as a story of a dysfunctional family. Single dad (Prospero) loses his job (the dukedom) and has to move his daughter (Miranda) into a shelter (the island), where there’s a weird goth kid (Ariel) and a wild kid (Caliban). Another victim of downsizing.

There’s also the political element. Anyone who thinks that Hollywood invented getting all up in a politician's business has never seen King Lear (or Oedipus Rex for the matter). James Cameron’s got nothing on old Bill Shakes. Shakespeare is almost always making a point that when government is in chaos everyone suffers. Gee, why does that sound familiar? Kings who let their egos guide them rather than their conscience get into big trouble in Shakespeareland. You have to wonder if we might not be in the mess we are now if Congress had a summer reading list that included Macbeth, Les Miserables, Lysistrata and The Inferno.