Is the long, cold Hanover winter making you think of some tropical paradise destination?
How about the Caribbean?
Tonight marks the opening night of the drama department 's production of "A Tempest," Martinique playwright Aim Csaire's Afro-Caribbean adaptation of the Shakespeare classic.
Featuring a cast of 15 students, "A Tempest" includes leading roles by Rachel Fink '01 as Prospero and Rashaad Green '00 as Caliban.
The play, which Csaire published in1968, uses the same characters and contains the same basic elements of the original by Shakespeare, but with an interesting shift of focus and deep political undertones.
In both versions, several members of European royalty are shipwrecked on a desolate island after a terrible storm sinks their ship.
Everything on the island is under the control of the cunning and manipulative Prospero, who uses his magical powers to make sure that the storm sinks the ship in the first place.
Prospero's unspoken intent is to marry his daughter Miranda to Ferdinand, one of those shipwrecked.
However, while Shakespeare focuses on the romantic elements of the story, Csaire's take is a potent satire, a result of the writer's own sense of alienation and outrage at Western colonial policies that assimilated whole civilizations.
According to guest director Paul Carter Harrison, "The most important message to come out of this play is that everyone must feel accountable for this subjugation. It affects everyone."
Born in the French colony of Martinique in 1913 to impoverished parents, Csaire was selected by the French as a young man to go to France where he would be educated by the government.
This was a political move for France -- after assimilating isolated young men into French culture, they sent them back to their native colonies with the express hope that in times of tension, France would always have a group of core supporters in the ranks of the colonized.
Csaire's feelings of alienation and indignity are expressed in the play by the character Caliban, a native of the island who is forced into slavery by Prospero, a European with magical powers.
In the Shakespeare original, Caliban is portrayed as a dumb and barbaric savage with little semblance of civility, a minor character in the background. In a purposeful twist, Csaire's play ascribes great importance to Caliban's character, placing him in the very center of the "tempest of change," as he struggles to find a positive identity for himself.
According to Harrison, "A Tempest" proceeds to monitor the plight of Caliban, who attempts to gain his freedom from Prospero by saying he is not satisfied with his position of servitude. This serves as an important difference from Shakespeare's version. Where Shakespeare's Caliban was more subtle, Csaire's remains openly resistant to Prospero's subordination, calling his master an "old cancer."
The excitement of the play is accentuated in the stage production. All the characters wear masks in the performance. According to Harrison, this is to "induce spiritual recall" of the event so that the audience will not forget.
Noting that most actors are playing cross-gender and cross-ethnic characters, Harrison said physical attributes are irrelevant because, "everyone, including the audience, is part of the same community."
It is this community, Harrison said, that must be aware of the indignities of subjugation and feel responsible for it.
In the play, Harrison recreates the tropical jungle atmosphere of the island using an array of vividly colored costumes, including puppets and acrobats. In addition, shadow figures are projected onto gigantic onstage backdrops to give the performance a "magical aura."
Another innovative aspect of the physical production is the rhythmic and musical accompaniment by a drummer playing congo drums, enhancing the Caribbean atmosphere.
"A Tempest" opens tonight in Moore Theater at 8 p.m.
