THE TEMPEST

The Tempest is a critical piece of metadrama, holding a mirror to the audience and inviting them to see a world of boastful pride and colonisation inside the world of the theatre as a path to it out the stage doors. The destroyed on-stage replication of the Sumner Theatre auditorium is water-logged, crumbling around the enslaved "natives" and occupying "nobles" alike due to Prospero's endless ego. Initial "tempestuous" weather opens opportunities for destruction in a physical sense, supported metaphorically by Prospero's emotional flippancy, and Ariel's crushing need to please this oppressor. The combination of disintegrating on-stage auditorium, oppressive 'glowing' lighting, and 1920s gramophone with modern effects adds to the commentary on the global pitfalls of the endlessly power hungry, the colonising, and the subsequent technological replacements of traditional theatre.