[In the following review of the 2003 Royal Shakespeare Company staging of The Tempest, Larque commends the production and admires the strong performances by Kananu Kirimi as Ariel and Geff Francis as Caliban, noting the deftness of both actors as they emphasized their characters' exploitation by an authoritarian Prospero.]

It remains to be seen whether Adrian Noble's policy against the RSC's use of traditional proscenium stages like the Barbican and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre survives his resignation, but this Roundhouse production of The Tempest proves a strong argument in favor of such a move. With the stage almost surrounded by seats, this performance—in the round—takes place amidst the audience, giving a sense that the actors are almost always within reach of the spectators. This is especially true when the action spills out into the aisles, and also for the “promenaders” who sit onstage at the actors' feet. This sense of intimacy is one of the best things about this production, and it is hard to see how this will survive the transfer to the notoriously unsympathetic Royal Shakespeare Theatre later in the year.

Like The Merchant of Venice, which cannot now be performed without suggesting the Holocaust, there is a long historical shadow over modern productions of The Tempest. Given repeated references to the slavery of Ariel and Caliban, modern audiences can be expected to see issues of colonialism and race within the play. Boyd's direction emphasizes this interpretation, casting black actors as Ariel and Caliban, subservient to an almost stereotypical white patriarch of a Prospero. Costumes place this production in Shakespeare's time, but the audience is clearly expected to blur the boundaries between Jacobean colonialism and the excesses of the nineteenth-century slave trade.

The focus of this Tempest lies unquestionably with the non-human characters. Malcolm Storry's Prospero is competent but unexceptional. He gives a strong, traditional performance—a firm foundation onto which the more original insights and interpretations of the production can be built—but he is not the center of this production. Little directorial ingenuity has been invested in his stage actions or motivations. The heart of this Tempest lies, instead, with Ariel, Caliban, and the athletic spirits, whose aerial stunts and acrobatics provide the visual highlights.

The stage setting seems deceptively simple at first, with a single lozenge-shaped platform built against the back of the stage, with three wooden ladders providing access to the stage below and with a series of metal ladders reaching from the top of the platform to the roof space. At first, this platform is neatly ordered, portraying the ship, with the metal ladders standing neatly upright and cylindrical banks of fluorescent lights hanging nearby. As the storm takes hold, however, the mariners break off and rearrange the ladders into a chaotic pattern, and the banks of lights break open and fall into crazy spirals, which come to represent the unnatural disorder of Prospero's magical island.

The storm sequence itself is strangely ineffective. Bursts of music and noise represent the storm in motion, but the effects fall conveniently silent every time somebody speaks. This prevents the traditional problem of voices being drowned out by the tempest but makes the characters' cries sound flat and unemotional, leaving the audience distanced and uncaring. Mariners shin down ropes and up ladders, and the top of the platform is hydraulically shifted back and forth, but the mild rocking suggests a rather tame and amateurish tempest that could more effectively have been portrayed by the actors alone.

Kananu Kirimi's delicate and childlike Ariel becomes the central character of this production. Small and lithe, on her first appearance, she almost dances back and forth, eager to please and desperate to impress Prospero. She begs for her liberty as if she deserves it and is then driven back by her belligerent and self-righteous master. She flinches and blinks one eye as Prospero spits his words at her angrily but nods and accepts his lecture like a schoolchild trying to stay on the right side of an unreasonable headmaster. The audience clearly likes and empathizes with this Ariel, siding with her against Prospero (“What a bully!” muttered one woman) and becoming caught up in her well-acted emotion and her desperate need for liberty.

In contrast to Kirimi's well-spoken Airel, Geff Francis' Caliban is initially a bestial figure who enters from beneath the platform in a black servant's outfit, harnessed and leashed like a dog, chewing on a hunk of meat on bone, which he spits repeatedly at Miranda as she confronts him. He gains dignity later, brandishing Stephano's flag and repeating “This island's mine!” as the lights come up for the interval and humanizing himself in his account of the music of the isle, supported by ethereal music that underlines the passion of his words.

The magic of the island is effectively created by use of the mariners, transformed into spirits by green body paint. As Ariel lures Ferdinand with “Full fathom five,” they drop from the roof space with ropes looped around their waists, their arms and legs free and flailing in a dance-like aerial display. The placing of the interval gives emphasis to two more significant displays by the spirits; the second part of the play begins with the vanishing banquet and moves immediately into the masque for the lovers.

The ethereal banquet is used to reveal the bestial appetites lying beneath the courtly civility of the three “men of sin.” The spirits dance gracefully and contort themselves for the entertainment of the courtiers, while offering them melons. As soon as Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio touch the food, however, they are reduced to animal greed—pushing away their companions, roaring and fighting among themselves as they savagely bite into the fruit and meat on offer, symbolically staining their hands and shirts with blood. Finally, one cuts the head from the swan that serves as centerpiece of the banquet and bites greedily into the neck, at which point Ariel leaps upright, the decapitated swan's wings and carcass strapped to her back, transforming her into the vengeful harpy.

The masque is similarly effective. It begins as Prospero presumably intended, decidedly unsexual, with the chaste Juno and Ceres played by strapping male spirits in extravagant drag. Prospero's “no tongues” becomes a warning to the two lovers to moderate their kissing. As the masque progresses, however, the dance of the nymphs and sicklemen becomes increasingly sensual and ends in an aerial display in which two of the spirits mate passionately in mid-air. Having apparently lost control of his own masque, which has perhaps revealed the human appetites that Prospero himself suppresses, Prospero agitatedly breaks off the entertainment, having been reminded of Caliban and the conspirators.

The end of the production returns the focus to Prospero's slaves. After having been dismissed, Ariel waits in breathless anticipation for Prospero to break his staff. Finally, as Prospero finishes his Epilogue appeal to the audience to “Let your indulgence set me free,” the forgotten captive Caliban appears and moves forward to confront him as the lights go down, reminding us that Prospero has not been so merciful towards those within his own power.