PROSPERO: what is this place
CALIBAN: it is the island of —
PROSPERO: an island eh
very well
i will buy it
CALIBAN: you can’t d —
PROSPERO: i’ll buy you too
while im at it
how much for you plus the whole island
CALIBAN: i —
PROSPERO: shut up
that was a rhetorical question
ARIEL: youve saved me from my oak prison
how can i ever thank y–
PROSPERO: be my slave for literally ever
ARIEL: I —
PROSPERO: no time to thank me now
start building me a palace
you can write me a sonnet after you make dinner
CALIBAN: here is the north side of the island
PROSPERO: very nice
CALIBAN: this is my mother
PROSPERO: wonderful
i’ll kill her
CALIBAN: you’ll what
PROSPERO: no time to thank me now
PROSPERO: do you see him
you’re going to marry him
MIRANDA: who
PROSPERO: him
the very wet man
MIRANDA: all right
he’s actually quite good-looking
i wouldn’t min–
PROSPERO: shut up
i said you were going to marry him
i didnt ask for your life story
MIRANDA: i’m sorry
i just meant i wouldn’t mind getting married to h–
PROSPERO: where is your off button
MIRANDA: my what
PROSPERO: shut down
MIRANDA: i don’t have that
i’m a human woman
you can’t just turn me off
PROSPERO: shhh
you sleep now
PROSPERO: do you see that ship out there Miranda
MIRANDA: yes, father
PROSPERO: im going to sink it
MIRANDA: why?
PROSPERO: because it might have my brother on it
MIRANDA: how can you be certain
PROSPERO: better drowned than sorry
MIRANDA: i thought the expression was better SAFE than —
PROSPERO: dont tell me what expressions are
FERDINAND: where am i?
where is my father?
ARIEL: oh he’s dead
FERDINAND: dead?
ARIEL: mm
pretty sure
he’s either dead or the other thing
FERDINAND: the other thing?
what other thing?
ARIEL: you know
that thing of when
someone’s underwater forever and they turn into coral
FERDINAND: drowned?
he’s drowned?
ARIEL: yes
FERDINAND: that’s the same thing as dead
ARIEL: okay well
you’re welcome
sorry for not knowing all the words you have for being underwater forever
Matt Lubchansky makes comics and occasionally leaves his apartment in New York. His work includes Please Listen to Me and New Amsterdam Mystery Company. He’s on Twitter, and doesn’t expect you to get his name right.
Tags: colonialism, dirtbag shakespeare, matt and mallory, the tempest, you can write me a sonnet after dinner
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Ugh Prospero’s the worst. Shakespeare was clearly working through some issues with his own father while writing The Tempest.
Yes but I am still a little bit sad that I didn’t get to see Helen Mirren blasting out twisted mother/daughter vibes in the role.
wait, I just found out it’s a film. I thought it was just a play! I would fail at charades, and also I’m going to watch it.
Don’t get too excited about it – Helen Mirren notwithstanding, it is…not a great movie. It’s not even an entirely fun movie. How you go about making something like The Tempest boring, I’ll never understand, but Julie Taymore’s got a gift.
Yeah, I was really excited about Helen Mirren as Prospero, and then I…couldn’t get all the way through the movie. And I like Shakespeare.
There’s also this version. Check out Ariel. I feel like he is covered in gold dust at some point but can find no evidence of this.
my friend and I (HI JEN) watched it all hopped up on adrenaline because we thought it was going to be SO GOOD because HELEN MIRREN and GENDER SWAPPING and JULIE TAYMOR and MY FAVORITE SHAKESPEARE but it was really just very strange and awkward with weird songs that went nowhere and an conspicuous naked Ben Whishaw trying to hide his junk all the time. Unfortunately not worth your time.
Julie Taymor has to put a damn dream ballet in everything. I support a dream ballet and all, but it’s not always the right answer.
Derek Jarman also filmed it in 1979: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081613/
Yes!
I’m teaching the Tempest to my Intro to Lit class today — definitely going to share.
My Monday was already going shockingly well (decent mood, not much in my work email, the maintenance guys fixed the thermostat in my office first thing this morning), and now this? EVERYTHING IS SO GOOD. I’m worried what’s going to happen to balance things out, now.
“PROSPERO: dont tell me what expressions are”
im like 99% sure that’s a canon line right there
As I was reading this, I was looking at the pictures, not really thinking too much about them, and then I kept going and was all WHAT THE HELL IS JAYA DOING HERE. Matt, you must have published a drawing of Jaya similar to Miranda here, have you? ‘Cause that’s what Jaya looks like in my head, apparently.
And now I have to go reread The Tempest, along with the rest of the ‘dirtbag shakespeare’ tag.
I’m imagining Helen Mirren as a dirtbag!Prospera now.
I’ve never seen that adaptation. Would you recommend it?
In my opinion: Helen Mirren, Djimon Hounsou, and Russell Brand are very worth watching. Ben Wishaw was cast correctly and then bludgeoned to death with over-processing and special effects. Everyone else was either unmemorable or actively bad. The cut of the script is anger-inducing, and the CGI is laughably bad. But it’s perhaps worth watching for Helen Mirren alone.
Thanks, sounds like it’s going on the to-watch list.
It is actually kind of astonishing how good Russel Brand is in a Shakespeare-clown role. He should just do that type of thing all the time.
Did you see the video of him improv/rehearsing? It’s incredible. He talks for 4 or 5 minutes about his character’s backstory.
I did! The one with Alfred Molina just sitting there being gobsmacked? It was so impressive.
I did not love it. There are some great moments in the film but otherwise, eh, no. Taymor’s adaptation of Titus is much better.
Yeah, the reaction on this thread seems mixed. I’ll give it a shot anyway, I like the Tempest, and Helen Mirren is pretty awesome. It’s always interesting seeing different takes on Shakespeare.
We sure do have a lot of words for being underwater forever
Prospero is literally the WORST.
AAARRRGGGGHHHH
“you know
that thing of when
someone’s underwater forever and they turn into coral”
This sounds legit like something they would write for Stefon to say on SNL.
“New York’s hottest club is TEMPEST
This place has everything: sailors, sorcerers, a thousand twangling instruments, enslaved hag-born freckled whelps…”
Okay I keep thinking about this and I have to do one:
STEFON: New York’s hottest club is MACBETH.
This place has everything: ghosts, witches, imaginary bloodstains, poor players strutting and fretting…
SETH: Wait, what’s a poor player strutting and fretting?
STEFON: It’s that thing of when you have a play that’s a metaphor about mortality, but an idiot wrote it and it’s really loud and doesn’t even mean anything.
STEFON SOUND AND THE FURY YES
NOW DO A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.
I mean, there’s already the Donkey Show, which is straight-up the real life version of Shakespearean Stefon. Nevertheless–DO IT!!!
(The Donkey Show: http://americanrepertorytheater.org/events/show/d….
You ask that I now build your grand abode;
Refrain from poetry until you’ve dined.
And though I do not wish to incommode
These verses will not rest within my mind
As I build I offer my oration
Of the praise running round and through my head.
I’ll gather up stones for a foundation,
Weave silk sheets and a bower for your bed.
In hopes you’ll find both heart and gut replete
Your evening meal I’ll happilly prepare,
Though my efforts aren’t worthy to compete.
I offer you nothing that can compare
To the pairing of Artist Lubchansky
With the glorious Wordsmith Mallory
*claps*
I feel like Miranda’s only motivation in The Tempest is to finally get laid.
O wonder!/ How many goodly creatures are there here!/ How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world/ That has such people in’t!/
And I’m gonna fuck one of ’em.
Eh maybe a couple of ’em.
My parents named me Miranda but ALMOST named me Ariel and I always feel very confused on a number of points:
1. I got the better name but the worse character – how should I feel about this
2. WHY WAS THE TEMPEST THE EXCLUSIVE SOURCE OF OPTIONS
3. were you just assuming I was gonna have daddy issues and trying to, like, give everyone a clue or something
I mean, Miranda (the character) has grown on me over time because god knows it’s not her FAULT she’s boring, but when I was a kid man did I hate her.
The ILLUSTRATIONS
BETTER DROWNED THAN SORRY
new favorite expression!
also great: sorry for not knowing all the words you have for being underwater forever
oh, Ariel. Cutie. <3
This piece came just at the right time, I’m currently reading The Tempest for my Shakespeare class. From now on I’ll be imagining Prospero to slightly look like Count Olaf.
(Is he supposed to evoke this impression or is that just my imagination?)
“Better drowned than sorry” is my new motto.
“where is your off button”
YEAH WHERE IS YOURS PROSPERO
BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS WON’T DROWN
Beat me to posting that!
Old man, you surface seldom.
Then you come in with the tide’s
coming
When seas wash cold, foam-
Capped: white hair, white beard,
far-flung,
Or as she put it elsewhere: Daddy you bastard, I’m through.
WHERE IS YOUR OFF BUTTON
oh that is applicable to my #RealLife
I played the boatswain in a production in high school. He appears literally only in the first scene when the ship is about to sink and in the very final moments where he explains that the crew survived somehow. The rest of the play is spent backstage wishing Prospero would ever shut up.
When I was 13 my class put on a (abridged) production of The Tempest with the grade below us, but because we had about 15 boys and 40 girls my teacher casted people regardless of gender. I think the only characters played by boys were some random extras and Caliban. We actually straight-up gender-swapped Ariel because all that required was switched pronouns.
I was Prospero. I got to wear a cape, a beard, have a staff, and be totally dramatic and weird. It was a glorious end to my brief acting career.
Love The Tempest (especially the Greenaway version,) hate Prospero.
So, who wants to talk about how Caliban’s actually Prospero’s illegitimate son by Sycorax?
Because he totally is. I’m shopping a story around about it.
IT’S ALL THERE, SHEEPLE.
Yes! Solid Swallows and Amazons reference.
Point of order, though… I didn’t see any sign of Prospero actually killing Sycorax, as she’d died prior to his exile. Only reason that I bring it up is that Prospero’s sort of squirrely and ineffectual in ways that matter and I don’t think he’s got the spine to do his own killing.
OOH. Better address someone’s levels of yellow bile to counteract that burn. BAM.
Not weird. It's a fantastic part.
You know, you guys who jump to criticize Prospero need to read the text more carefully. He’s awesome! He even tells Miranda that she was the only reason he stayed alive, and that he’s doing this all for her. True, he is seeking vengeance against the brother that tried to murder him and his three-year-old daughter (think about it, how would you feel if the person you loved most in the world, your own brother, tried to murder you and your 3 year old daughter?), but when he realizes he’s become a monster, he forgives them all. Forgiving someone for doing such monstrous things to you and your child, that’s pretty amazing to me. The major theme of all of Shakespeare’s plays, at the end of his career, is about forgiveness and mercy. Prospero literally has godlike powers, but then he does the ultimate godlike thing, and FORGIVES everyone. Even Caliban, who, remember, tried to rape Miranda. Don’t blame a lot of people for not getting that, because most directors don’t and most actors don’t.