stevemyrgy

Having seen eight different movies and three filmed stage versions of this play, I have to say that none of them got close to the visceral experience of Harriet Walter enunciating the timeless phrase 'we are such things as dreams are made on'. Her timing, excruciatingly expressive facial gestures, and pregnant pause between this line, its follower ('and our little lives are rounded with a sleep') and the lines which follow returning her from her contemplation of the eternal to to interpersonal here-and-now, truly allowed me to sense how Shakespeare was here summing up his career with a summation as inspirational as it is deflating.

That this expression of pure artistic eloquence followed an exquisite effect of images projected with and through a series of balloons that then, as the full house lights harshly come back on, Prospero violently pop, is a testament to Phyllida Lloyd's mastery of staging.

Without a doubt, the most moving and passionate Tempest I've seen. Combining as it does magic, true love, political conspiracy, family revenge and slapstick humor, this is far from an easy play to pull off as an integral dramatic whole. The masterful direction of Lloyd, the passion brought to her acting by Walter and the talents of all the other players managed, at least for me, to do just this.

As a watcher of far too many serials (I'm beginning to regret my passion for them), this one is better than average, but still falls prey to the normal pitfalls of plotting of most of them: a token female who really serves little if any purpose to the plot; a truly nefarious bad guy who has a seemingly endless supply of henchman who get disposed of along the way; a brutal, unjustified murder that must be avenged; a bumbling, well-meaning sidekick along for largely comic relief; a variety of cliff-hanger endings (you can only use falling off a cliff once - and this was a fifteen parter!); incredibly bad aim when shooting (I've a game of counting how many shots are fired by both sides in a gun battle versus how many shots actually find their targets); enormous plot holes (the heroine leaves AFTER the bad guys, but still gets to the shack to warn the good guys BEFORE their enemies arrive!); countless improbable recoveries (from being knocked cold, they can get up and carry on fighting within a matter of seconds); and finally, and most importantly, the dimwittedness of the bad guys, whom have already shown themselves to be stone cold killers, to NOT kill the good guy when he comes under their power ('okay, go and tie him up', when they could simply have shot him).

This serial makes ALL of these blunders, but still, it is better than average. They did have only one set of bad guys, thus not needlessly complicating the viewer's efforts to figure out who is working against whom. They didn't use any stupid masks (ala The Crimson Ghost and even The Phantom). They did portray a relatively sympathetic attitude to Amerindians - indeed, the title character is supposedly of the Navajo tribe, and a general respect for following law and order supercedes several angry attempts to 'lynch him!'.

The genealogical revelation at the end seemed somewhat unnecessary, except for the existence of a subconscious racism working below the surface, but this is mere speculation. At least it didn't end with the hero kissing the heroine!

Not as bad a time waster as others I've seen, and I've really grown to like Kenneth MacDonald as a deep-voiced, conniving villain.