Tabling: The Podcast

Chasen Schneider, Levi Morger, Mitchell Kawash and Ariana Karp conclude our discussion of Act V of The Tempest. 

• We determined that we enjoy Act V more than Act IV.
• Specificity of stage directions and the overlap between ritual, theatre and religion
• Prospero’s turn from revenge to forgiveness - when does it happen and how that affects the play?
• Parallels to Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus 
• Staging choices in the modern age 
• Physical vs. Metaphysical storm
• What happens with Antonio and Sebastian? Are they repentant? Is their silence acceptance or defiance?
• Is order restored at the end of the play?

William Hutt as Prospero in The Tempest.

Will McKay, Chasen Schneider, Levi Morger, Mitchel Kawash & Ariana Karp puzzle through Act IV of The Tempest.

• The Ben Jonson Masque put into the play - difficult to incorporate the Iris/Ceres/Juno part in a way that moves the plot forward
• Iris/Ceres/Juno sequence as a marriage ceremony for Miranda and Ferdinand
• Why is Prospero so upset about remembering Caliban’s treachery?
• Difficulty of the specific stage directions in the act
• What is Prospero’s confrontation with mortality caused by? Caliban’s plot? The appearance of the spirits? His daughter getting married?  
• Achieving immortality through words
• Is Prospero concerned with legacy?
• Music as frightening and overwhelming as opposed to soothing and pleasant
• Shakespeare’s use of mixed metaphors “smelt music,” "rainy marching in the painful field" & “I see a voice”
• Is this Shakespeare’s only play that takes place entirely outside?
• Shakespeare and the relationships between punctuation, breathing, rhythm and meaning

Colin Morgan as Ariel in the Globe's 2013 production.

Join Mitchel Kawash, Will McKay, Jen Greenwald and Ariana Karp as we discuss Act III of The Tempest!

• The groups which were established in the first and second acts continue in the third act - Miranda and Ferdinand, Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo and the nobles with Ariel and Prospero flitting in and out of the scenes
• Miranda proposes the marriage - aligning her with other Shakespearean heroines like Rosalind and Juliet
• Miranda being directly disobedient for the first time in the scene
• Miranda’s innocence coming from ignorance as opposed to status and breeding
• The clowns scene - the high level of drunkeness! 
• Caliban and Ariel have the agendas in 3.2
• Is Ariel distinctive from the magic of the island? or Is Ariel the magic of the island?
• Is Ariel appearing as the Harpy Prospero’s ultimate plan for Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian?
• Is Prospero’s pursuit of power and revenge become on par with Antonio’s pursuit of political power
• Shakespeare and tapping in the gray area of humanity
• Supernatural as a manifestation of a concept

Julian Bleach as Ariel in Harpy form in the RSC's 2006 production directed by Rupert Goold. 

Mitchel Kawash, Will McKay, Zoë Goslin and Ariana Karp discuss Act II of The Tempest.

• Staging must be very, very precise in both of the scenes in this Act
• The scenes make more sense in the context of staging, meaning derived from the movement
• Antonio and Sebastian as one focal point and Alonso & Gonzalo as the other focal point
• Gonzalo’s Utopia speech lifted from Montaigne’s essays
• “Noble Savage” idea and its undercutting within the act
• Bringing back the ‘native’ creature from the isle for profit is an idea which occurs to four characters in the play
• Shakespeare’s prophetic vision of colonizer and colonized 
• The temptation of Sebastian to ambition and power by the political mastermind that is Antonio
• Antonio is a “modern” political creation
• Elasticity of interpreting The Tempest
• Why does Prospero put all the courtiers asleep and leave Sebastian and Antonio awake? Is it a test of their characters to see if they have changed? 
• Parallels of Prospero and Sycorax 

Simon Russell Beale as Ariel and Alec McCowen as Prospero in the RSC's 1993 production. 

Join Vanessa Vaché, Patrick Harvey, Ellyn Heald, Samantha Blinn, Levi Morger, Will McKay, Jen Greenwald and Ariana Karp as we discuss Act I of The Tempest.

• What is the storm in the first scene of the play? Why does Prospero sink the ship?
• Is Prospero’s ultimate goal to torment his enemies? What is his end-game?
• Prospero as stage-manager/puppet-master/director
• Where are Prospero’s powers from? A book? The earth? 
• Did Ariel cast a love spell over Ferdinand and Miranda?
• Miranda as front-footed. Bashfulness is something that is learned
• Who can see Ariel? Is Prospero the only one? Does Miranda know about the spirits?
• The idea that Ariel is the manifestation of a humanoid form of magic, Ariel can split and shape shift into any form.
• Challenges of staging the very lengthy second scene
• Ariel being compelled and confused by human behavior as a way to “other” Ariel 
• Does Prospero have some remorse and regret about neglecting his duties as Duke of Milan? 

Patrick Stewart as Prospero in the RSC's 2006 production of The Tempest, directed by Rupert Goold.

Levi Morger, Jen Greenwald, Ellyn Heald, Patrick Harvey, Vanessa Vaché, Will McKay & Ariana Karp discuss our initial thoughts on William Shakespeare’s late and beautiful The Tempest.

• Shakespeare’s first play to follow the unities (of time, place and action) since The Comedy of Errors.
• One of Shakespeare’s only original story lines
• Political implications of the play-mastery and rule and power structures and dynamics
• Metaphysical, spiritual and existential implications of the play
• Revenge plot structure
• Play imbued with humanism and humanist education
• Connections to Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus: “I’ll burn my books” vs. Shakespeare’s “I’ll drown my books”
• Montaigne’s Of the Cannibals and Gonzalo’s utopia speech
• Accessing the idea of Shakespeare’s magic in our day and age
• The power of language as a colonial device
• Shakespeare’s prophecy of the impact of alcohol on the indigineous population 
• Many colonial themes before colonialism was a widespread phenomenon
• About escape (both physical and spiritual) and redemption
• Does the project succeed?
• The influence of Ben Jonson’s Masque and the anti-Masque
• Magic - Natural versus Demonic branches 
• Human-ness of the non-humans

Correction: Tony Sher just finished a run of King Lear not The Tempest - our friend Natalie was his Cordelia, not Miranda. Apologies! 

Helen Mirren as Prospera in Julie Taymor's movie The Tempest.

This week, Tabling did a very special episode with the Upstart Crows of Santa Fe, a youth Shakespeare group in New Mexico that does uncut Shakespeare for kids aged 10-18, discussing their current production of The Tempest. Tabling producer and Shakespeare lead Ariana Karp (who is collaborating on the play with the actors) interviews the young actors and scholar Natalie Elliot about the complexities and challengesof the play.

The participants in this episode are Natalie Elliot, Jackson Budoff, Sterling White, Liam Mitchell, Isaac Marriner, Zoe Marriner, Olivia White, Anna Farkas, Joy Farkas, Caryl Farkas and Madeleine Philpot. 

Tabling with the Upstart Crows of Santa Fe.

This week, Tabling did a very special episode with the Upstart Crows of Santa Fe, a youth Shakespeare group in New Mexico that does uncut Shakespeare for kids aged 10-18 , discussing their recent production of King Henry IV, Part I. Tabling producer and Shakespeare lead Ariana Karp interviews the young actors and directors about their characters, 'linguistic footprints’, and the challenges and joys of the play.  

The participants in this episode are Jackson Budoff, Sterling White, Liam Mitchell, Isaac Marriner, Zoe Marriner, Olivia White, Anna Farkas, Joy Farkas, Caryl Farkas and Madeleine Philpot. 

The Upstart Crows of Santa Fe - King Henry IV Part I - August 2016. Photo by Lynn Roylance.

Samantha Blinn, Matt Ball, Chasen Schneider and Ariana Karp conclude our discussion of King Henry IV Part I with Act V:

• Action packed nature of the last act - four epic sword fights!
• Hotspur’s honor versus Falstaff’s honor
• Ethics of the body in the battlefield 
• The glorified idea of the person and the contrast of the dead body
• The political metaphors and artifice of King Henry and Worcester’s language contrasted to the more straight talk of Hal in the parley scene 
• The significance of a rebel lord, Lord Vernon, as the prophet of Henry V’s military glory
• The cleverness of battle tactics and the king’s disguise
• Douglas’s fury as a warrior 
• How our post modern perspectives on violence and warfare shape our understanding of the play
• Language as a rationalization and exploration of feeling and idea

Jeremy Irons as King Henry IV and Tom Hiddleston as Prince Hal in The Hollow Crown.

Matt Ball, Patrick Harvey, Samantha Blinn, Chasen Schneider and Ariana Karp discuss Act IV of King Henry IV, Part I. Topics include:

• Mainly expository nature of Act IV 
• Themes of sickness and disease through the language of the rebellion
• Vernon’s rhapsodic reverie about Prince Hal
• The dark and cynical observations about the foots soldiers as “food for powder” aka cannon fodder
• Hotspur ultimately is the one person who makes the decision about exactly when the battle will be fought
• Hotspur’s explanation of the rebel’s grievances is the clearest in the play when he is explaining to the Earl of Blunt
• Last scene of Act IV as an oddity-the only time that we see anyone from the ecclesiastical orders in the play
• The repercussions of the battle of Shrewsbury as the beginning of Hal’s military education - looking at the parallels in the two battles in Henry V (Harfleur and Agincourt)
• Falstaff as a ‘wild child’

Joe Armstrong as Hotspur and Michelle Dockery as Lady Kate Percy in The Hollow Crown (King Henry IV Part I).