Summary 
Christopher Plummer provides a strong performance in the lead role as a wise old magician with a mischievous streak and a twinkle in his eye. Entertaining emphasis on magic and special effects blunts some of the drama-of-forgiveness power, as does the weight given the humorous antics of Stephano and Trinculo, but a wily, bright-blue imp Ariel and a brooding yellow-eyed sea-beast Caliban.
Design
Directed by Des McAnuff. Set by Robert Brill. Costumes by Paul Tazewell. Lights by Michael Walton. Compositions by Michael Roth. Sound by Peter McBoyle.
Cast
Christopher Plummer (Prospero), Trish Lindstrom (Miranda), Julyana Soelistyo (Ariel), Dion Johnstone (Caliban), Gareth Potter (Ferdinand), Peter Hutt (Alonso), Timothy D. Stickney (Sebastian), John Vickery (Antonio), James Blendick (Gonzalo), Robert Persichini (Adrian), Bruce Dow (Trinculo), Geraint Wyn Davies (Stephano), Stephen Russell (Master of the Ship), Wayne Best (Boatswain).
Analysis
Des McAnuff's entertaining The Tempest begins with an ethereal purple spotlight on an open book at center stage. Thunder sound effects resound with an ominous hum as the audience takes its seats, then as the house lights fade there is a peal of echoing thunder amid flashes of lightning. Julyana Soelistyo's pixieish Ariel, a diminutive sprite in a white- and-blue-streaked bodysuit, descends rapidly from the fly to chords of ethereal music, swooping like a magical bird to retrieve Prospero's book then soar back upward gracefully. The effect lends a nicely magical tone to the entire production, which emphasizes the wizardry of Prospero.
Christopher Plummer provides the heart of McAnuff's production, a weary but not feeble old Prospero who first appears 1.1 in the shadows of stage left with a pirate's eyeglass, watching the shipwreck in the storm. Miranda appears opposite him stage right, a muscular redheaded girl in cornrows and a ragged white dress, panicked by the storm - "father!" - and concerned for the sailors at sea. Sailors scurry amid billowing sail flaps over their heads, and they swarm center stage in fear and panic. Afterward 1.2, Plummer's fatherly Prospero - wearing something like purple pajamas - shows wicked wizardry chops, his seaweed jacket flashing with magical sparks of electricity. He folds the magic cloak within a trunk - "live there my art" - and wryly wags a scolding finger as electrical sparks jump one last time. Plummer's white-bearded Prospero has warmth in his demeanor and a twinkle in his eye as he speaks with Miranda, and birds tweet and sing as they talk of the storm and their past. When he recounts the tale of their abandonment at sea, Plummer's Prospero becomes stern and hoarse with anger - "thy false uncle" - although Miranda seems not so much outraged as defensive of her father. McAnuff wisely illustrates the effect Miranda has upon Prospero as Plummer's fuming wizard relaxes and cracks a joke to make her giggle, then makes her sleep with a magical spell that has her reel for a moment before collapsing into a ball onstage.
Soelistyo's tiny baby-faced Ariel, an androgynous spirit with spiked hair and a high- pitched squeal of a voice, answers Prospero's summons 1.2, laughing gleefully at "hell is empty, and all the devils are here" and showing melancholy disappointment at further work: "is there more toil?" Stage fog billows from under her feet, and Plummer's Prospero casts a spell that has her rise in the air on a tiny platform, brightly lit within a spot light before she races off to do his bidding. Prospero and Miranda then seek out Caliban, the blue-and-white spirit Ariel's brown-and-green Creature From The Black Lagoon opposite. Father and daughter walk along a spinning stage circle, arriving at a yawning trap stage right. The yellow-eyed Caliban emerges from the trap poised in a balanced crouch as if in half a push-up. He insults both Prospero and Miranda, but she quite characteristically responds - "I pitied thee" - with more remorse than anger.
The densely composed 1.2 also includes the meet-cute between Miranda and Gareth Potter's boyish Ferdinand. With Ariel singing from a perch above, Prospero stands offstage left and waves an arm to begin the playing of music, effectively spinning Ferdinand round for Miranda to see. The youngsters giggle like schoolchildren when they finally see each other, much to the satisfaction of Plummer's Prospero - "at the first sight, they have changed eyes" - although he pretends to accuse Ferdinand as a spy and traitor to test him. Not above showing off, Prospero's spell lifts Ferdinand's drawn sword from his hand and it hovers and twirls magically in the air. By 3.1 Potter's Ferdinand is sighing and smiling in his thoughts of Miranda, and his struggle to raise a twelve-foot log culminates in a bawdy suggestion of an erection. Their relationship is nonetheless played with sweetness - "I am your wife if you will marry me" - and once Ferdinand kisses her hand, Miranda dances excitedly offstage embracing the hand he kissed. By the second act, Prospero is performing a magic trick for the new couple - a candle in a basket bounces in mid-air in front of them, then rises magically into the air to disappear into the fly - but he alternates paternal warmth ("take my daughter") with a father's stern warning: "therefore take heed." Distracted 4.1 by Ariel, Plummer's Prospero spins to abruptly interrupt their lingering upstage kiss.
McAnuff cleverly uses a half-dozen Caliban-like beasts - perhaps denizens of the mysterious island - to affect scene changes, and he populates the smaller roles such as the shipwreck survivors with a who's who list of recognizable Stratford Festival veterans. Four actors in particular boast a combined eight-plus years' experience with the Festival alone: Peter Hutt, son of William, with eleven seasons; Wayne Best with fifteen; James Blendick with twenty-seven; and Stephen Russell with twenty-eight. They roll wooden barrels off the ship, scuttling their vessel during the 1.1 storm, and pose in freeze frame to shipwreck sound effects as the looming sail falls and is yanked to disappear upstage. Wearing traditional Old World Jacobean costumes of doublet and hose in black and gold, they gather together on a large raised 2.1 trap that resembles a sand dune on a beach.
Stephano and Trinculo imbue McAnuff's production with comic relief, although the magical island, revenge for usurpation, and budding romance seem more interrupted than enhanced, despite the humor of the scenes. When Dion Johnstone's Caliban hides from a rainstorm 2.2 beneath a long cloth, Bruce Dow's orange-haired Trinculo arrives in a red shirt and red hat - "he smells like a fish" - and is intrigued by the lumpy mass. Dow's Trinculo reacts to the audience response like a stand-up comedian, twirling his pumpkin hair - "misery makes strange bedfellows" - before hiding in the big blanket beneath Caliban. Geraint Wyn Davies continues the slapstick scene as his Scottish Stephano slurs in a thick brogue, wielding a wine bottle and sporting a black mustache and argyle socks. Davies' ebullient Stephano - "do not turn me about, my stomach is not constant" - bonds with Caliban, giving up his bottle and beeping the sea-beast's nose, and the lowbrow humor is amiably played, if heavily laden with foot-licking and references to nausea, defecation, and flatulence. In 3.2 the motley crew drunkenly enter an upstage rowboat with Johnstone's Caliban at the helm, and they pretend to row as the stage circle spins and brings them downstage. When they stand, they each have their own bottle, and they nearly fall overboard in drunken lurching before resuming their assassination plot. Caliban's poignant "when I waked I cried to dream again" gets short shrift, sandwiched between Ariel's comic impersonation of Trinculo and Ariel's leading them away with glowing lights.
McAnuff relies on eye-candy special effects, with Plummer's Prospero raising his hand to begin the playing of music for the survivors 3.2, followed by the six beasts bringing blankets and platters of food before Ariel arrives as the frightening Harpy. Ariel appears over the stage amid thunder and lightning, her voice amplified, large-winged in blue and white. The survivors attack but in a 1960s Star Trek moment are stunned by a high-pitched tone. Plummer's Prospero then rises from a center-stage trap, appearing to sit on nothing, suspended in mid-air within a bright spotlight. In 4.2, Soelistyo's Ariel plays a keyboard onstage, and to bird-call sound effects, three twelve-foot-tall goddesses appear along the stage periphery, towering apparitions with hair and faces in striking colors: one in green stage right, an orange goddess stage left, and a third upstage all in yellow. They bestow a triple blessing upon the Miranda-Ferdinand wedding, but Plummer's Prospero becomes suddenly angry - "our revels now are ended" - and concludes the visitation by slamming down Ariel's keyboard cover. After Ariel disrupts (and laughs at) the blundering would-be assassins, Stephano and Trinculo return covered in mud, wearing one shoe each. When Plummer waves an arm, clean garments arise magically from onstage chests, but the six sea-beasts scurry onstage to chase Stephano and Trinculo away. McAnuff ends the high- tech spectacles with a poignant moment that ushers in the 5.1 conclusion, as Soelistyo's Ariel sits beside Prospero after placing the magic cloak over his shoulders.
Plummer's Prospero finally seems to summon closure - "this rough magic I abjure" - standing alone in a spotlight at center stage until Ariel leads the mariners onstage to encircle him. Ariel removes his magic jacket while singing "where the bee sucks," replacing it with a cloak of office from the trunk. As Prospero forgives the men, including his usurping brother - "most wicked sir" - Ferdinand and Miranda emerge upon a yellow-lit platform from a center stage trap, playing chess and enjoying each other's company, completely unaware of the men around them. When Miranda finally notices, she circles them in awe - "o brave new world" - before Alonso kneels and kisses her hand to bless her wedding to his son. McAnuff accelerates the pace as the story lines wrap up: when Ariel leads the other mariners to safety from upstage, she shares a winking smile with Prospero, and the assassins return in humiliated defeat: "I am not Stephano, but a cramp." As Plummer's Prospero reclaims his dukedom, Caliban stands straight and tall, proud in his freedom - "and I will be wise" - as Ariel departs within a canoe. Plummer's Prospero sends off the blue-and-white spirit - "with the elements...be free" - much more as a longtime friend than as an employee or servant.
The production itself receives warm applause from the Festival Theatre audience, the volume growing noticeably louder for the curtain calls by Soelistyo and Johnstone, but there is a stirring - and richly deserved - rush-to-the-feet for Plummer when he strides back onstage.