Originally published on August 20, 2021 by Ken Marks in The New Yorker (“The Theatre, Now Playing”).
“The Tempest” is a beautiful, exciting, and fitting production to conclude the festival’s thirty-four-year tenure at Boscobel. (The company is decamping to a nearby, equally glorious setting along the Hudson next season.) Under the incisive direction of Ryan Quinn, and with thrilling choreography by Susannah Millonzi, the play, Shakespeare’s last, opens with the titular storm expressionistically illustrated with the help of a Nina Simone recording—she’ll make another dramatic contribution later—and the energy and artistry never flag. Three key roles are superbly filled. Britney Simpson’s Ariel is a marvel of physical sprightliness and musical and emotional heft. The same could be said of Jason O’Connell’s Caliban, a damaged monster with a poetic soul and a voice that ranges from beastly growl to soaring song. And Howard W. Overshown powerfully embodies the complex Prospero, struggling within himself between violence and mercy, revenge and forgiveness. Shakespeare’s ruminations on the evanescence of experience are magically given life on this fantastic island.