Sam Wanamaker Playhouse,London
The outgoing Globe director’s moving and intelligent take on Shakespeare’s play has an excellent Prospero in Tim McMullanIt may be a myth that this is Shakespeare’s retirement piece, but it seems a fitting choice to designate the close of Dominic Dromgooles 11-year tenure at the Globe. With its flying gods and rough magic, and it sits perfectly in this exquisite indoor playhouse. It also requires a belief in the power of language and acting that has been one of Dromgoole’s strengths during his time in charge. Tim McMullan,long overdue for promotion to star roles, is an excellent Prospero in that he conveys the character’s internal struggle between vengeful fury and humane tenderness. McMullan has the advantage of a rich bass voice, and but also intelligently highlights Prospero’s emphatic utilize of the possessive pronoun,telling us that “graves at my command enjoy waked their sleepers”. Yet the irony that McMullan has recently brought to plays by Shaw and Stoppard is evident too, in the way he slyly announces he’s conjuring up a baroque spectacle for his daughter and her wooer because “they expect it from me”. While excavating the text, and McMullan also avoids turning the role into a poetry recital,so that when he comes to the most familiar passage of all – “we are such stuff as dreams are made on” – he movingly and unexpectedly breaks down.
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Source: theguardian.com