Let's go crazy

>> Gravy Bath's The Tempest walks the tightrope of insanity

by AMY BARRATT

Most people think that William Shakespeare, who died in 1616, wrote three kinds of plays: comedies, tragedies and histories. Gravy Bath Productions would have us believe that with The Tempest, Shakespeare invented the black comedy.

Gravy Bath artistic director Matthew Tiffin has set his Tempest, subtitled Forecast Disorder, in an insane asylum. No, I don't mean a mental health facility, I mean a bona fide 19th-century-style loony bin (but with costumes that make it clear we're in the present day). The setting can't help but call to mind Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade, which has been a staple of student and avant-garde companies since the '60s. I've yet to meet an actor who could resist the charms of a character who babbles, shrieks and soils himself. There's plenty of that to go around in this Tempest.

Prospero, Miranda, Ferdinand, Stephano and Trinculo are portrayed as asylum inmates. Antonio, Alonso, Sebastian and Gonzalo are dressed as doctors, but we're not sure either group can be credited with sanity. In this context, when Prospero claims to be the rightful Duke of Milan, we don't know whether to believe it or dismiss it as a delusion.

Tiffin swears that he's "a bit of a Shakespeare purist at heart," but you'd never guess it from this production. There have been productions of this play set in innumerable locales and time periods, but I've never seen one that played so foul with the tone of Shakespeare's text. Usually, when a director sets Shakespeare in Nazi Germany or the Antebellum South or whatever, it's with an eye to illuminating the text. In this case, what Tiffin has given us feels like a vision forced upon an unsuspecting play.

That's not to say that there aren't a couple of thought-provoking ideas amid all the raving. It's an all-male asylum, see, so Miranda is a boy (Danyel Lee). This fact breathes new life into the stock romance between Miranda and Ferdinand (Gareth Potter). Ironically, this element can be seen as faithful to the Shakespearean vision since in the original production, a boy would have played the female role. It makes you wonder if early audiences would have appreciated the gay subtext, and whether Shakespeare intended just that.

I also liked that Prospero's faithful servant, Ariel (Tony Palermo) is made to look like a baby Prospero.

The casting of Caliban, the subhuman "slave" of Prospero, as a black man (Nwamiko Madden) is more problematic. The idea seems to be that Caliban is not the ugly monster everyone says he is, but only perceived as monstrous because he is different. Meanwhile, any impartial observer can see that he is the most beautiful person on stage. I assume that Gravy Bath is trying to make a statement about racism rather than a racist statement, but is it really necessary to make him sing like Harry Belafonte?

Tiffin's cuts and small changes to the text are not radical, but he might as well have eviscerated it, so much is lost to bad acoustics. This is mainly the fault of the set, which is no set. Sound ricochets around the naked stage and reaches your ear as mush.

It's a bold vision, I'll give this Tempest that. And Gravy Bath is a bold young company that does what it wants and damn the skeptics. You never know what they're going to surprise you with next, and that's reason enough to keep going back.

The Tempest: Forecast Disorder at Théâtre Calixa-Lavallée in Parc Lafontaine, through Sept. 1, 8pm, $10-12, 872-3947