Bridges over Troubled Waters: Two Touring Tempests, 2010-2011

Beginning with Sam Mendes' 2010 Tempest - part of the director's transatlantic "Bridge Project" - and expanding to include Declan Donnellan's 2011 Russian-language Tempest for Cheek by Jowl, this essay considers the place of run-of-the-mill, big-budget, Anglophone Shakespeare alongside more daring, offbeat or niche productions. Mendes' Tempest serves as a typical example of high-profile but mediocre classical theatre, being part of a global tour and helmed by an established director, yet strangely unspecific in its reading of the play. The Anglo-American production was an uncertain hybrid of familiar styles, alternately minimalist and elaborate, and relied on the crutches of overblown sentiment, tired interpretations and a clumsy multimedia component. Donnellan's Tempest is held up in contrast, indicating the richness to be found outside the sphere of ordinary Anglophone Shakespeare. Its confident aesthetic choices, nuanced interpretation of character, and clear post-Cold War geopolitical commentary gained the Russo-English Tempest a significantly more positive reception than its Anglo-American cousin. Donnellan's production articulated, with depth, material that mattered to a global audience. Contrast Mendes' reduction of Shakespeare to a safe, muddled kind of high-status boredom.