Thou Goest Green
Wednesday, July 9th by scott malia
Loving the earth has become trendy. With the turning point being former Vice President Gore’s 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, the past two years have seen the green movement go global. Now, recycling is for sissies. That’s not green; it’s simply expected. If you’re hardcore about the environment, you’re remodeling you car, your house, and your life. Like any zeitgeist, the movement has also had an impact upon theatre, including Shakespeare festivals. One festival has even incorporated a green tie-in to their season by asking audience members to pledge personal ecological change.
Last fall, a host of network television shows incorporated environmental issues into their plotlines (Mr. Gore even made a cameo). It seems that Shakespearean productions could be taken in a similar direction—and some already have. The Tempest has always been the go-to play to talk about the environment because of the whole man-trying-to-control-nature thing. Prospero could be seen as a representative for humankind and its hubristic desire to dominate, control, and exploit the natural world. The play has frequently sparked thematic explorations of slavery, and the notion of the enslavement of the natural world certainly creates a parallel.
The Tempest also makes a good fit because of its structure. Like many late Shakespearean works, it is a multi-genre work whose eclectic nature make it easy to graft different ideas onto it. In this light, we can view the finale as Prospero’s renunciation of his manipulation of the environment. It also helps make sense of his eleventh-hour decision to let his duplicitous captives live. Despite the ills these men have wrought upon him, Prospero in the end decides to recycle them.
