Patrick Stewart on Prospero (Shakespeare on Stage)
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About this ebook
In this volume, Patrick Stewart discusses playing Prospero in Rupert Goold's arctic-set 2006 production of The Tempest for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
This interview, together with the others in the series (with actors such as Judi Dench, Ian McKellen and Jude Law), is also available in the collection Shakespeare on Stage: Thirteen Leading Actors on Thirteen Key Roles by Julian Curry, with a foreword by Trevor Nunn.
'absorbing and original... Curry's actors are often thinking and talking as that other professional performer, Shakespeare himself, might have done' TLS
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Stewart is a distinguished stage and screen actor whose illustrious career spans six decades. A classically trained theater artist who got his start at England’s Royal Shakespeare Company, Stewart’s legendary performances have garnered him three Olivier Awards, Emmy and Tony Award nominations, and a Grammy Award, among countless honors. His beloved screen work, known to audiences worldwide, includes his iconic portrayals of Star Trek’s Jean-Luc Picard and X-Men’s Professor Charles Xavier. Follow him on social media at @SirPatStew.
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Shakespeare on Stage
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Titles in the series (24)
Sara Kestelman on Hippolyta and Titania (Shakespeare On Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRoger Allam on Falstaff (Shakespeare On Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFiona Shaw on Katherine (Shakespeare On Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChiwetel Ejiofor on Othello (Shakespeare On Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIan McKellen on King Lear (Shakespeare On Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPatrick Stewart on Shylock (Shakespeare On Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsZoë Wanamaker on Beatrice (Shakespeare On Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEileen Atkins on Viola (Shakespeare On Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSimon Russell Beale on Cassius (Shakespeare On Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMichael Pennington on Timon of Athens (Shakespeare On Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlan Rickman on Jaques (Shakespeare On Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRalph Fiennes on Coriolanus (Shakespeare on Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHarriet Walter on Imogen (Shakespeare On Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJude Law on Hamlet (Shakespeare on Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTim Pigott-Smith on Leontes (Shakespeare on Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrian Cox on Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare on Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHelen Mirren on Cleopatra (Shakespeare on Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJudi Dench on Juliet (Shakespeare on Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDerek Jacobi on Malvolio (Shakespeare on Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRebecca Hall on Rosalind (Shakespeare on Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAdrian Lester on Henry V (Shakespeare on Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPatrick Stewart on Prospero (Shakespeare on Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPenelope Wilton on Isabella (Shakespeare on Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIan McKellen on Macbeth (Shakespeare on Stage) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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Patrick Stewart on Prospero (Shakespeare on Stage) - Patrick Stewart
The Tempest is the last of Shakespeare’s four late romances. It is one of his best-loved, and strangest plays. It tells of the sorcerer Prospero, an exiled duke, who exacts revenge upon his usurpers by calling up a tempest that shipwrecks them on his island. Elements of the story have the weirdness and wonder of a fairytale. It has inspired numerous diverse analyses. Some have considered it an allegory of divine learning, with the forces of evil conquered by Prospero, using his celestial authority to restore the power of good. Usurpation is a recurring theme. Recent focus has been directed at The Tempest’s depiction of an island colonised by white Europeans, who enslave and exploit its native inhabitants. Contrasting themes of revenge and forgiveness are discussed by Patrick Stewart in the interview that follows. It can be seen as Shakespeare’s swansong: at the play’s end Prospero abandons his book and staff, the tools of his magic – Shakespeare was to leave the theatre and retire shortly afterwards. The Tempest is rich in theatrical illusion and allusion. Prospero abruptly halts the masque in Act 4, Scene 1, saying ‘Our revels now are ended; these our actors… Are melted into air,’ and immediately segues into an astonishing meditation on theatre, illusion, decay and the transitoriness of life itself, culminating with:
We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
The Tempest has never been my favourite Shakespeare play. I’ve admired different productions this way and that, but it has seldom previously grabbed my entrails. However, this was a staging with a difference. An opening radio gale warning led to a stunningly choreographed storm scene and shipwreck. The desert island setting was brazenly perverse, revealing a frozen polar