The Tempest - A Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds Production by William Shakespeare

Thursday 21st October 2004. Simon & I went to see The Tempest at Theatr Gwynedd, Bangor.

I love this story and loved the production. It had a contemporary feel to it but was a great performance. The character of Ariel was strange and kept leaping through the walls, Caliban was great and quite grotesque which is I guess the way he should be.

Bangor theatre is actually a nice theatre and we had good seats too. Shame they don't have more productions that I want to see.

Synopsis

Off the Adriatic coast of Italy lies an enchanted island of contrasts, an island which represents many different things to many different people.

To the wronged Prospero, it is a place where illusion and reality blend seamlessly, one into the other.

For the virginal Miranda, his daughter, it is the only world she has even known.

When a mighty storm shipwrecks King Alonso, Duke Antonio and their party on its shores, they find themselves tempted by spirits, teased by sprites and tormented by monsters - all by the hand of Prospero, the man they marooned and betrayed 12 years before.

A time for revenge? Or a time to forgive?

Directed by Colin Blumenau and designed by the creative team that produced The Misanthrope and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, this production combines music and magic, poetry and prose, reality and illusion to create a world where anything can happen and nothing is quite what it seems.