Fireflies flickering in the dusk and guinea fowl clacking on the opening night of The Tempest at Maynardville in Cape Town catapult the audience onto the sands of a Shakespearean island.
Here a female Prospera, played commandingly by award-winning actor Antoinette Kellermann rules — a mother and a sorceress who strikes her staff down to conjure up a storm. The effects are electrifying.
Unlike the King of Naples Alonso and his son and brother, who are shipwrecked on the island in Prospera’s web of revenge, the audience is captivated by the shimmering set of the open-air theatre. The enchantment of the king’s son Ferdinand (Jefferson Lan) and Prospera’s lissom daughter Miranda (Jane de Wet), meanwhile, is with each other.
The Tempest challenges us to see storms not as endings, but as the seeds of new beginnings
— VR Theatrical executive producer Jaco van Rensburg
The gender reversal of Prospero into Prospera and the outstanding performances of Albert Pretorius as the island’s first inhabitant, now her shambling and grunting servant Caliban, and Daniel Lasker as her ethereal slave Ariel — along with a trio of spirits tumbling and swooping on forest vines across the stage (Len-Barry Simons, Lungile Lallie, Naoline Quinzin) — come together flawlessly. The play is engaging and easy to follow, even if you’re not an aficionado.
Ariel’s desire for freedom and the humanity of Caliban, whose rights as an indigenous person have been trampled on by interlopers, underscore the universal themes thrumming in The Tempest. These themes couldn’t be timelier as Trump winds the wire of inequality tighter around the planet every day.
This is the fourth time The Tempest is being performed at Maynardville, in what VR Theatrical executive producer Jaco van Rensburg describes as the eye of the global storm. “As we face a world of shifting tides, environmental, political and personal, this production is a celebration of what we do right. It challenges us to see storms not as endings, but as the seeds of new beginnings,” he writes in the programme.
Miranda’s speech about forgiveness to Prospera — drawing on a devoted mother-daughter bond, an original element of this production — is moving. She is likely to shine on future stages too.
While The Tempest’s themes of the betrayal, revenge, love and redemption ring out undiluted in this production, director Sylvaine Strike’s interpretation of the play succeeds at the same time in being whimsical and playful, allowing its elements of fantasy full flight.
Ariel’s performance of the Native American flute on stage enhances the play's original score and soundtrack by Wessel Odendaal. Niall Griffin’s set and gorgeous costumes, which could have been salvaged from a shipwreck, and the Tinkerbell-style lighting strung amid the trees by Oliver Hauser add to the production’s allure.
The characters Sebastian/Trinculo (Tankiso Mamabolo) and Antonio/Stephano (David Viviers) make the audience laugh with sterling performances and help suspend audience disbelief about the elaborate story. What Shakespeare’s last solo play lacks in plausibility, it makes up for in entertainment.
For one night at least, it’s possible to enter the dreamscape of theatre and imagine a world where laughter, forgiveness, freedom and equity, triumph and “all people are living life in peace”.
*The Tempest is on at Maynardville Open-Air Festival in Cape Town until March 8 2025. To book visit: https://maynardville.co.za/
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