My Tempest

We saw The Tempest!! Yay! I was so happy after it was over. I wished that I could see it again to grasp all the deeper meaning and analyze it and all that great stuff. I was very pleased and pleasantly surprised with how the people acted and the set and the costumes. At the time it was the best performance I'd seen all year!

And then I read Cassie's blog post that related her perspective on things. The deep contrast between my opinion and this new opinion was overwhelming! She was very critical of the play unlike I had been. I began to question my pure thoughts about this performance. Without making any final judgments I went to class, waiting for our discussion to clear things up. In class I realized that my immediate acceptance of the appearance was impeding my capability and willingness to analyze critically. I mean, if I weren't in a Shakespeare class that would be okay but I am in a Shakespeare class and I needed to see a little clearer in that way.

What I liked
I enjoyed the superb acting and use of body language to show magic. They were so good! Definitely suspended my imagination and lent to the spectacle. They could have had magic on the stage for all I knew! I also really liked the costumes. I hadn't imagined what costumes they would have but the apparel they had definitely blended in and made it seem more real. And Ariel's costume really stood, too (in a good way). The set was really spectacular and the actors seemed so much more fluid and willing to move than they in The Winter's Tale.

Necessary Questions
Though I liked the play there were some quirks; definitely some things that disappointed me. First of all I made a whole post about these two little segments of this one scene and most of all of the text of this scene was cut. Completely. Nothing to satisfy my longing to hear these gorgeous passages uttered and acted. Another problem with this scene was the fact that it was interpreted way too much. They stuck so much into it that I didn't really know what was going on (this is the first scene when the back dropped away and the picture of the universe appeared). I didn't see that coming! And I still don't understand how it fit into the play!

This is me admitting I was a little teensy bit wrong. But I still have an opinion and overall I really enjoyed going to see The Tempest.