The second year of Sam Mendes’ hugely ambitious Bridge Project sees him return to the Old Vic with stagings of As You Like It and The Tempest, following last year’s highly successful productions of The Cherry Orchard and The Winter’s Tale, which perfectly attuned themselves to Mendes’ dynamic, intelligent and hugely innovative style of direction. If The Tempest, by contrast, does not threaten to become as armrest-grippingly essential, then this is partly because of the diffuse nature of what must be one of Shakespeare’s strangest plays and partly because Mendes abandons the bombast of some productions in favour of an atmosphere of gentle regret and quiet hope.
Stephen Dillane, one of Britain’s greatest yet least known classical actors, makes a quiet, introspective Prospero, regarding the various situations that he is faced with under a veneer of diffident, bookish urbanity, as if to hide the man and his magic underneath. Sometimes his diction is so softly-spoken that it verges on the inaudible, yet there is a tenderness to his performance that sets his Prospero against the sturm-und-drang of most other actors, forever beating their staff against the ground and crying out blank verse as if their fortunes depended on it. By the final reconciliation scenes, his performance as a character who is part-sage, part-director is both very affecting and a wry tribute to everyone who has ever been interested in theatre.
The supporting cast (made up, as per the ‘Bridge’ concept, of both British and American actors) are very strong, with Juliet Rylance as a radiant, yet confident Miranda and the great classical actor Alvin Epstein (who famously played The Fool to Orson Welles’ King Lear) is a touching Gonzalo. Mendes, as ever, throws in some breathtaking coups de theatre – the first appearance of Ron Cephas Jones’ Caliban from out of a sandpit, like some primal monster is one and an unexpected, but affecting video projection of Miranda as a young girl towards the end is another.
If this isn’t quite up to the exemplary standard of some of Mendes’ other productions, such as his quite brilliant farewell plays at the Donmar Warehouse, Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya, this is only because he has set himself such high standards before that it is unrealistic to expect him to reach them with every play that he produces. As London theatre goes, this is high-class stuff.
Until 21st August
