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Bouffes du Nord, Paris
Dates of run: Until March 29
Adaption and direction: Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne
Cast: Sylvain Levitte, Paula Luna, Fabio Maniglio, Luca Maniglio, Marilú Marini and Ery Nzaramba
Running time: approximately 75 minutes
On March 21, Peter Brook would have been a hundred. To celebrate the birthday that he didn’t quite live long enough to see, his beloved Bouffes du Nord Theatre in Paris, where he spent most of his working life, is staging his and Shakespeare’s final project.
Directed together with Brook’s long-time collaborator Marie-Hélène Estienne, “The Tempest Project” is the culmination of his pared back style, infused with wonder and wisdom.
The more than two hours of Shakespeare’s original is reduced to 75 minutes of French, sprinkled with a phrase or two of English, and delivered by a cast of six. It combines poetic resonance with lightness of touch.
We lose the masque, the plot on Prospero’s life is barely a mention and yet the pace feels perfectly judged and we gain the kind of clarity of vision we imagine Prospero felt as he reconciled himself to the decision, informed by a life-time of experience, to lay down his art.
The central theme is freedom, together with the flipside enslavement.
The two are united in an inspired piece of doubling that casts Sylvain Levitte as both Caliban and Ferdinand; Caliban is the unwilling slave to those in power and Ferdinand is the willing servant of Miranda in a relationship of equality and freedom.
As Miranda, Paula Luna is luminous, innocent, guileless, assured. One minute, she detests Caliban as a monstrous, would-be rapist. The next, she has no ambition to see a finer man than Ferdinand. The joke for the audience is that both are played by the same man in a hint at the subjective, visceral, arbitrary nature of love that Shakespeare spent much of his career telling us is blind and enslaving and clear-sighted and liberating.
The relationships in general are almost as complex and problematic as in life. Ery Nzaramba’s engaging Prospero relishes his power, demonstrated in the minimalism of Brook’s style by a wooden staff. Arguably, he abuses it: he may have lost a dukedom, but for the enslaved Caliban, that does not justify his theft of an isle.
As an unwilling subject, Caliban craves liberty, and yet as soon as he stumbles on new masters in the form of Trinculo and Stephano and their proffered alcohol, he begs to again be enslaved.
In another deft piece of casting, Trinculo and Stephano, indistinguishable in their foolishness, are played by twins Fabio Maniglio and Luca Maniglio.
With the exception of Levitte, all the cast is non-French, which feels entirely natural on an island whose other inhabitants have been washed ashore.
The final felicity of the casting is the decision to make Ariel not a young but an ancient spirit, played with great feeling by Marilú Marini. After years of servitude to Prospero, she is tired, no longer nimble and desperate for freedom for whatever time she has left, and yet the sorrow of parting from her long-time master is heart-felt.
The thing that makes it bearable is the knowledge a next generation is about to take up the mantle, which was surely the case for Peter Brook as he put aside his art for the final time.
Tempest Project
Bouffes du Nord, Paris
Dates of run: Until March 29
Adaption and direction: Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne
Cast: Sylvain Levitte, Paula Luna, Fabio Maniglio, Luca Maniglio, Marilú Marini and Ery Nzaramba
Running time: approximately 75 minutes
On March 21, Peter Brook would have been a hundred. To celebrate the birthday that he didn’t quite live long enough to see, his beloved Bouffes du Nord Theatre in Paris, where he spent most of his working life, is staging his and Shakespeare’s final project.
Directed together with Brook’s long-time collaborator Marie-Hélène Estienne, “The Tempest Project” is the culmination of his pared back style, infused with wonder and wisdom.
The more than two hours of Shakespeare’s original is reduced to 75 minutes of French, sprinkled with a phrase or two of English, and delivered by a cast of six. It combines poetic resonance with lightness of touch.
We lose the masque, the plot on Prospero’s life is barely a mention and yet the pace feels perfectly judged and we gain the kind of clarity of vision we imagine Prospero felt as he reconciled himself to the decision, informed by a life-time of experience, to lay down his art.
The central theme is freedom, together with the flipside enslavement.
The two are united in an inspired piece of doubling that casts Sylvain Levitte as both Caliban and Ferdinand; Caliban is the unwilling slave to those in power and Ferdinand is the willing servant of Miranda in a relationship of equality and freedom.
As Miranda, Paula Luna is luminous, innocent, guileless, assured. One minute, she detests Caliban as a monstrous, would-be rapist. The next, she has no ambition to see a finer man than Ferdinand. The joke for the audience is that both are played by the same man in a hint at the subjective, visceral, arbitrary nature of love that Shakespeare spent much of his career telling us is blind and enslaving and clear-sighted and liberating.
The relationships in general are almost as complex and problematic as in life. Ery Nzaramba’s engaging Prospero relishes his power, demonstrated in the minimalism of Brook’s style by a wooden staff. Arguably, he abuses it: he may have lost a dukedom, but for the enslaved Caliban, that does not justify his theft of an isle.
As an unwilling subject, Caliban craves liberty, and yet as soon as he stumbles on new masters in the form of Trinculo and Stephano and their proffered alcohol, he begs to again be enslaved.
In another deft piece of casting, Trinculo and Stephano, indistinguishable in their foolishness, are played by twins Fabio Maniglio and Luca Maniglio.
With the exception of Levitte, all the cast is non-French, which feels entirely natural on an island whose other inhabitants have been washed ashore.
The final felicity of the casting is the decision to make Ariel not a young but an ancient spirit, played with great feeling by Marilú Marini. After years of servitude to Prospero, she is tired, no longer nimble and desperate for freedom for whatever time she has left, and yet the sorrow of parting from her long-time master is heart-felt.
The thing that makes it bearable is the knowledge a next generation is about to take up the mantle, which was surely the case for Peter Brook as he put aside his art for the final time.
Barbara Lewis © 2025.
By Barbara Lewis • plays, theatre, year 2025 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, plays, theatre