A day for whimsey, first at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, then at the Roman Garden Theater in Lenox with The Tempest. The four of us cracked wise at MoCa and were delighted by Shakespeare and Company’s new outdoor theater that captured the magic of Shakespeare’s final play.
As you walk in to MoCA the mood is set by these four trees growing bottoms up. The museum has repurposed several warehouses for extraordinary art installations.
Most recently James Turrell designed rooms with boxes of cloudy lights like the one pictured below. One room actually has a nine-minute cycle of various colors and strobes that envelop you with blues, pinks and yellows. We were not sure whether to be awed or amused, so we alternated moods.
In the newest building we found these colored disks nearly filling a warehouse-sized space. The photo captures about half the expanse of mobile disks.
The colorful nets below decked the entrance, but we see John and Beverly exiting that way below, as we adjourned for a picnic lunch.
“Likely the Bard’s final piece that he penned alone, The Tempest sets the stage for a betrayed magician bent on revenge. Prospero’s seething softens when he sees through his daughter that love and forgiveness conquer darkness.”
It was an hour to get back to Lenox for a 5:30 performance, so we bolted after lunch. The Tempest was the inaugural performance for Shakespeare and Company’s production and its outdoor theater. “Shakespeare has always been closely linked with the outdoors. In Elizabethan times, the Bard’s plays were performed in the open-roofed Globe Theatre. Outdoor Shakespeare performances immerse you in the “natural world”, a landscape that offers an escape from conventional society, a theme integral to the Bard’s plays.” [ http://www.shakespeare.org/about/our-theatres]
“Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises…” —Act 3, Scene 2
The stage itself is a plywood platform with high grass growing in the middle to simulate Prospero’s island. Ropes crisscross above the stage, one of which delivers gifts from above on a winch– at one point fancy robes, at another a banquet of bread and fruit. From behind the audience an evergreen tree becomes a perch for Ariel as she receives Prospero’s commands and leaps off to execute them. These minor features, combined with eerie background music, thunder,and other effects, evoke the magic of the setting.
Good performances all around, but special honors go to Nigel Gore as Prospero, who had long narrative and reflective lines to read, but measured them thoughtfully. Ella Loudon, as Miranda, manages the look of lovesick adolescence with style.
Exiting the Roman Garden we paused for our group photo opp, just before Margaret departed for New York.
With daylight barely surviving, John, Beverly and I returned to Vacation Village for a late dinner. Friday the rest of us depart, the Shanks for Montreal, Bill for New York and eventually Michigan.
As I write this I am overnighting in Painted Post, NY, within driving distance of Michigan on Saturday.