Shakespeare writes tragedies.
Shakespeare writes comedies.
Every once in a while, Shakespeare writes a play that we're not sure falls into either category.
And in this case, it's called a tragic comedy.
And that's exactly what The Tempest is.
The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's shortest plays and also possibly one of his last.
However, it's still a classic and as one of Shakespeare's only plays that appears to be completely original
in terms of its story, it's an essential part of the Shakespeare continuum that can't be overlooked.
Among other things, there's a common scholarly theory that Prospero (the main character of The Tempest)
is in fact a representation of Shakespeare himself and that his final farewell to his magic at the end
"ORIGINAL CHARACTER - DO NOT STEAL" is in fact a representation of Shakespeare himself and that his final farewell to his magic at the end
is in fact a representation of Shakespeare himself and that his final farewell to his magic at the end
"SHAKESPEARE'S FINAL MASTERPIECE" is also representative of Shakespeare's final farewell to playwriting.
Then again, since the bard's not exactly around anymore, we can't straight-up ask him.
So I guess that'll have to remain in the realm of scholarly theorization.
And with no further ado, I present to you a summary of The Tempest.
The Tempest begins, shockingly, with a tempest that results in a shipwreck,
leaving the ship's passengers stranded on an island.
Of the people shipwrecked, these are the only important dudes:
There's Alonso, the King of Naples; he's kind of a big deal.
There's Sebastian, Alonso's younger brother.
There's Antonio, the Duke of Milan; he's a bad guy.
There's Ferdinand, Alonso's son and the Prince of Naples.
He's also going to be this story's Romeo so keep an eye on this one.
And then there's Gonzalo, an overall swell nobleman.
There are also these two guys, Stefano and Trinculo.
Stephano is the drunken butler of the King and Trinculo is his jester.
They're not really important at the moment and they won't be for quite a while.
So you can just ignore these while they go and get stinking drunk somewhere.
But it turns out, they're not alone on the island as we cut away the two seemingly unrelated people:
Prospero and his daughter Miranda
[Intermission] "Okay, so I owe you guys a bit of an apology on this one."
[Intermission] "In the original text, Prospero is a dude."
[Intermission] "But the movie version I used here swapped his gender so Helen Mirren could play the role."
[Intermission] "So just mentally replace her with a dude, I guess."
Now Miranda's freaking out because she saw the ship in the storm and thinks that many sailors must have died.
But Prospero reveals that he actually conjured the storm with magic
"...?" which apparently, he can totally do.
"MAGIC" And he ensured that nobody died. In fact, the ship is perfectly intact and hidden in a secret harbor.
Now Miranda's like "But dad, why'd you have to strand these people here?"
And Prospero is like "Well, that's a long and complicated story that I really should have told you
at some point in the past 12 years."
So it turns out that Prospero was once himself the Duke of Milan.
And Miranda was basically a princess.
But Prospero was too busy reading books, studying, and being scholarly in general to fulfill all his tedious government duties.
So instead, he let his brother Antonio handle all the government work that he was avoiding.
But Antonio had greater ambitions and persuaded King Alonso that Prospero should be exiled,
specifically set adrift in a tiny, rickety boat to die.
So not really exiled at all, I guess, just murdered and everything but name.
And that Antonio should take over his full-time Duke of Milan.
Apparently, this plan sounded fantastic because King Alonso was all for it.
Gonzalo took pity on Prospero and his then three years old daughter,
supplying them with food, good clothing, and books from Prospero's library.
Of course, if the movie version is to be believed,
Gonzalo seems to have primarily focused on that fine clothing aspect,
seeing as these people are not at all dressed like castaways whose last set of clothing
"Well, maybe Miranda a little bit." seeing as these people are not at all dressed like castaways whose last set of clothing
was for someone 12 years younger than they are.
(Sarcastic) Sure was nice of Gonzalo to include the essentials of their survival.
They drifted ashore and since then, Prospero has been raising Miranda all by himself,
while simultaneously being an extremely powerful sorcerer.
"NOT SURE IF PROSPERO IS A GOOD FATHER OR A MANIPULATIVE MAGICIAN" Strangely, he never took the time to teach any awesome magic to Miranda.
"NOT SURE IF PROSPERO IS A GOOD FATHER OR A MANIPULATIVE MAGICIAN" Or even a basic knowledge of the outside world but whatever.
"YOU CAN SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING" Now, since every single one of the names in that story sounded remarkably familiar,
"YOU CAN SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING" we can all see where this is going.
"iz is having my revenge" Prospero stranded the ship because it was carrying the two men responsible for his exile.
"...mmm revenge tastes like pie" And he's clearly got some nasty revenge scheme cooked up for them and their loved ones.
Sure enough, Prospero summons his fairy servant Ariel,
(who is most certainly not Puck)
asking him to separate the stranded noblemen so he can deal with them more easily
and specifically to bring the King's son Ferdinand to him.
Ariel, in turn, asks to be freed from his servitude and Prospero refuses.
(Sarcastic) What a swell guy.
"They said "Cheer up! Things could be worse." So I cheered up and sure enough, things got worse!" On the grounds that Ariel's last master had been way worse than Prospero,
"Lady Not-Appearing-In-This-Film" an evil witch named Sycorax, whose primary contributions to the world at large included
a nasty, devilish son named Caliban
and a totally kick-ass Doctor Who villain.
Speaking of the devil, we are introduced to Caliban who Prospero orders to go and collect some firewood.
Oddly enough, Caliban initially seems like a moderately sympathetic character.
He's an unwilling slave to Prospero,
a man who initially acted as a friendly father figure to Caliban and taught him of the world,
only to turn around and use him for manual labor.
Of course, Caliban stops being at all sympathetic right around the time where we learned
that he tried to rape Miranda.
Yeah, kind of a deal breaker.
Anyway, Ariel leads Ferdinand to Prospero and Miranda.
And Miranda immediately falls head-over-heels in love with him,
primarily since he's the first attractive man she's ever seen in her life.
Prospero, meanwhile, begins to put his dastardly vengeance plan into motion in which he arranges
for Ferdinand to fall in love with Miranda.
[Evilly] HA HA HAHA HAHA HAHAHAHA HAHAHA
And then he wants them to be happily married so that they can all return to Milan as one big happy family.
Ha!
Trope's averted.
Bet you didn't see that one comin'.
Turns out, the mean old wizard guy is not actually that mean.
He just really wants to make sure that his daughter will have a good future.
So his plan is as follows:
"Step 1: Play cupid for hormonal teenagers" He's going to make Ferdinand and Miranda fall in love with each other
"Step 2: Suggest commitment to hormonal teenagers" so that they'll want to get married.
"Step 3: Emotionally torment daughter's future father-in-law" Then he's going to essentially stress out Ferdinand's father, the King, so much
"Step 4: Stage family reunion" that he's just going to be so happy to find out his son's really alive
"Step 5: ???" that he'll take them all back to Milan out of gratitude.
"Step 6: VENGEANCE" that he'll take them all back to Milan out of gratitude.
And this is why he couldn't free Ariel;
Because he still needs some magical help in order to make all the pieces fall into place.
"" And this is one of the reasons why The Tempest is such a unique play.
And this is one of the reasons why The Tempest is such a unique play.
Because there's an actual character that's essentially taking the role of writer and stage director
"boring analysis continues>" Because there's an actual character that's essentially taking the role of writer and stage director.
Because there's an actual character that's essentially taking the role of writer and stage director
Because Prospero is the one moving all the characters around and having them interact the way they are.
"" Because Prospero is the one moving all the characters around and having them interact the way they are.
"" Of course, he's also just basically being a puppet master like a lot of characters
Of course, he's also just basically being a puppet master like a lot of characters
but this is kind of like what would happen if they wrote "Lord of the Rings" from Gandalf's perspective,
"" but this is kind of like what would happen if they wrote "Lord of the Rings" from Gandalf's perspective,
"AND NOW: THIRTY CHAPTERS OF BALROG SWORDFIGHT" a version which I would totally read by the way.
"J"Accuse" So he pretends like he thinks Ferdinand is a spy and he's like,
"Miranda, I absolutely forbid you to fall in love with this man."
And Miranda's like, "Oh, daddy, please, can I keep him?
And Prospero is like, "Miranda, this man is the son of our hated enemy; he's the worst of the worst."
And Miranda's like, "Well then, dad, I guess I must have really low standards."
So Prospero's like, "Alright, fine."
"He can stay with us as our servant but only because you totally forced my hand just then."
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the island, poor King Alonso is super sad
because he thinks his son Ferdinand must have drowned in the shipwreck.
And while he and the others take a nap,
Sebastian and Antonio decide to murder him so that Sebastian can inherit the throne.
Fortunately, Ariel is there to wake the King up before they can go full Macbeth on him.
Over to Caliban, he's off collecting firewood and sulking about his servitude
when he runs into these two drunk guys named Stefano and Trinculo.
See, they're kind of relevant, who proceed to get him stinking drunk.
He decides to worship Stefano as a god since he thinks he must have fallen from the moon.
Yeah, I don't really get it either. I think this is the comedy part of this, uhh...
Anyway, back to Ferdinand who's working as a servant for Prospero.
He and Miranda have this beautiful little conversation about true wealth and all that.
So they confess their love to each other and resolve to get married whenever it's possible.
Prospero does a little victory dance that his well-intentioned scheming has worked out so properly.
Back to the three stooges over here,
Caliban is explaining to the other two about how nasty and evil
his master Prospero is and suggests that they all go and murder him.
After all, what else is a lazy Saturday for?
Back to the other shipwrecked noblemen, Prospero has been having his spirits troll them for a little.
First, they make a fancy banquet appear out of nowhere.
And then Ariel vanishes all the food and accuses the King and his partners in exiling Prospero of being evil.
"this is such trolling" "I have made you mad."
"this is Shakespeare for "u mad bro"" "I have made you mad."
Man, Shakespeare really loves banquets that go horribly wrong.
King Alonso continues to mope and Sebastian and Antonio resolve to kill him that night for sure.
Prospero gives Ferdinand permission to Marry his daughter.
Shocker, right?
Prospero sends Ariel to go and collect the others so they can witness the happy couple.
"oh gawd" Then he summons a bunch more spirits to pretty the place up for the new visitors.
"is this what it's like to be high" Then he summons a bunch more spirits to pretty the place up for the new visitors.
But then Prospero remembers that Caliban was totally going to try and murder him.
Fortunately, his would-be assassins are total idiots.
So he and Ariel just string up some shiny clothing to distract them and
Caliban's accomplices proved to be magnificently bad at staying focused for any extended period of time.
This is what happens when you get comic relief to do a tragic character's job.
Finally, the cast is reunited.
Prospero reveals to Alonso that Ferdinand is totally still alive,
gives Gonzalo a great big hug for saving their bacon all those years ago
and presumably as a thank-you for all those fancy dresses he must have shipped with them.
And casually mentions to Sebastian and Antonio how he could have them executed for treason at any time.
You know, just food for thought.
When Alonso learns how Prospero and Miranda survived,
and more importantly, how Prospero's daughter and his son are suddenly engaged,
Alonso insists that Prospero and Miranda return home to Milan with them so the happy couple can be officially married.
Prospero finally sets Ariel free.
Everyone's friends again. And there's a great big happily ever after,
except for Caliban, Stefano, and Trinculo who seem to remain stranded on the island.
And for that matter, Antonio and Sebastian don't really get a resolution either.
Nah, I'm sure it's fine.
Oh, and Prospero also gives up all his awesomely useful sorcery and magical powers because magic is bad, kids.
Ta dah!
It's amazing how few movie versions of The Tempest there are
There were three that I found - one that was ridiculously artsy with too many butts, one that was a pretty clear interpretation but was very visually boring, and this one with Prospera.
Honestly, though, I picked the movie that looked the prettiest.
Gotta love how Prospero's revenge plan was actually beneficial to everyone involved
Caliban has NEVER been done in a non-racist fashion. I'm sorry.
He's a relic from a bygone era, much like that one offensive uncle we all have.
This song is Beethoven's 17th, nicknamed "Tempest".
And that's why it's here.
THE MORE YOU KNOW
I like how classy Shakespeare's grave is - only the fanciest of gravestones have death threats on them.
Wonder what Ariel has against pants.
This has been an overly sarcastic production
"editing sucks" Urgh, computers are stupid.