Comical, participating and filled with vibrancy – The RSC have produced a delight of humour, bodily theatre and haunting melodies on this season’s manufacturing of The Tempest.
Inspired by the local weather emergency, this manufacturing and all events concerned have collaborated to create theatre with sustainability in thoughts. From reusing outdated surroundings, flooring and scenic partitions from earlier RSC productions, mixed with native partnerships with managed forests for on-stage timber and foliage; this firm are setting the usual for the way forward for sustainable theatre.With all of this second-hand, inexperienced observe, it have to be stated that the set was actually visionary in creating the proper tropical island: big canopies of beautiful greenery, heat yellow lights – sufficient to make you are feeling sun-kissed from the highest of the circle, and a goose-bump inducing soundscape that magnified all of the senses and took the viewers to an Eden-paradise. Fuelled by symbolic gesture, highly effective physicality and entrancing music, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre involves life in an ethereal and idyllic means.
Kingston makes an imperious and hypnotising Prospero, solidifying the empowering gender reversal with a mother-daughter relationship – her little one Miranda, performed by Jessica Rhodes. Their on-stage chemistry and comedian timing cement the muse for the plot with such ease. Heledd Gwynn’s whimsical and attractive depiction of Ariel was a stand-out efficiency; gracing the viewers with a light-weight reduction, folk-like vocals and scrumptious playfulness. This modern-day, eco-conscious manufacturing propels the RSC into the twenty first century and can be the proper introduction to Shakespeare for the non-thespian; a forward-thinking and accessible means of theatre we hope to see extra of.
Review by Esther Neville
Rating: ★★★★
Seat: Circle A51 | Price of Ticket: £75