Miranda (Francesca Carpanini) and her father, Prospero (Sam Waterston), make magic in Central Park (photo by Joan Marcus)
Central Park
Delacorte Theater
Through July 5, free, 8:00
publictheater.org/tempest
In the brief synopsis of The Tempest in the program for the Public Theater’s latest Shakespeare in the Park presentation, which opened at the Delacorte on June 16, it says in bold caps, “The play opens with a storm. . . . The storm isn’t natural.” But the night I saw it, real blasts of thunder accompanied the beginning, a striking depiction of the sudden squall that deposits a group of noblemen on a remote island. The elements are always part of the fun in these Public Theater productions, so the darkening clouds and threatening rain — which never came — added to the drama, which at times needed a little help. The island is occupied by the gray-bearded, professorly magician Prospero (Sam Waterston), his fifteen-year-old daughter, Miranda (Francesca Carpanini), and his two slaves, the playful sprite Ariel (Chris Perfetti) and the brooding, deformed Caliban (Louis Cancelmi). Formerly the duke of Milan, Prospero was exiled twelve years earlier when his brother, Antonio (Cotter Smith), usurped his title, and Prospero has been planning his revenge ever since; it is no coincidence that the shipwrecked boat was carrying Antonio, along with Alonso, the king of Milan (Charles Parnell), his brother, Sebastian (Frank Harts), and Ferdinand, the son of the king of Naples (Rodney Richardson), along with several others, including the honest councilor Gonzalo (Bernard White), Alonso’s jester, Trinculo (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), and the drunken butler Stephano (Danny Mastrogiorgio). Promising him freedom, Prospero sends out Ariel to do his dirty work, turning the men against one another so he can regain his title, while also playing matchmaker to Miranda and Ferdinand, who take an instant liking to each other.
Prospero (Sam Waterston) orchestrates strange doings on a remote island in THE TEMPEST (photo by Joan Marcus)
“Your tale, sir, would cure deafness,” Miranda says to her father when he is filling her in about their past, but unfortunately, Waterston (Law & Order, Grace and Frankie), wearing what appears to be a kind of tallit (Jewish prayer shawl), is marble-mouthed as Prospero, hesitant and uneasy in his line readings, particularly in the first act, making it hard to understand him as he strains to find a rhythm. This is his tenth Shakespeare in the Park appearance, an illustrious resume that dates back to his starring role in Hamlet back in 1975, so his performance is somewhat confounding, although he does settle down significantly in the second act. Perfetti’s (Sons of the Prophet) Ariel, clad in a mildly S&M body harness, is also questionable and ill-defined. But the rest of the cast is strong and engaging; current Juilliard student Carpanini and Richardson (Pulse) have infectious chemistry as the potential lovers, Ferguson (Modern Family, The Comedy of Errors) and Mastrogiorgio (Lucky Guy, Golden Boy) provide necessary comic relief, and Cancelmi (Father Comes Home from the Wars, The Hallway Trilogy) is excellent as the native “monster,” a character who evokes colonialism, bigotry, and fear of the other. Through it all, Arthur Solari’s percussion, played from his own booth at the corner of the stage, is filled with emotion itself as it goes from anger and ire to passion and love. Director Michael Greif (Next to Normal, Our Lady of Kibeho,), who helmed the well-received 2007 Shakespeare in the Park production of Romeo and Juliet with Lauren Ambrose and Oscar Isaac, never quite finds his own rhythm, the three story lines bumpy until all coming together in the end on Riccardo Hernandez’s scaffold-based set. And speaking of the end, when Waterston stood alone onstage to deliver the epilogue, asking for applause to help him return to Milan, a goose flew overhead as if on cue, honking like a warped metronome, the outdoor elements once again becoming part of the show. This brave goose might not have laid a golden egg, but it did recall Mercutio telling Romeo, “Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five: was I with you there for the goose?”