Tempest Essay

Submitted By yasminamna
Words: 872
Pages: 4
Open Document
Tempest Essay

In this essay I will be explaining the different things we did in our six assessed weeks in our Drama lessons. We were exploring the play ‘The Tempest’ throughout the six weeks. I will be explaining fully only some of the activities, the things I enjoyed and didn’t enjoy about it and exploring the difficulties of turning the text of the tempest to a performance.

The purpose of us doing this unit was to use the practical drama methods and techniques we had learnt about like Commedia del Arte and many more. Also to explore the meaning of our text and find different original ways of interpreting it. Before we started studying The Tempest we saw ‘One Man Two Governor’s’. In my opinion this seems a very different style of play to The Tempest. One man two governers used commedia del arte, improvisation, exaggeration, slapstick and many more, whereas The Tempest is quite formal and ‘Shakespearian’ and seems much more ‘serious’ but this helped us decide to use an ‘alternative’ way of presenting our Tempest play and the characters to bring out the comedy and to help us to understand and present the characters. We also saw and animated film version of The Tempest, which highlighted the fantasy, and magical elements of the play. The film versions can show all the magical elements because they can edit them but doing it on stage will be a lot harder, so we will have to find more inventive ways of staging the ‘magic’ by Prospero and the magical characters such as Ariel.

In the first session we were doing an activity related to the storm in the first scene. We selected the key lines in the scene that create the language of a storm play. We then arranged them in a order we thought would ‘tell a story’. We practiced saying our allocated lines in different ways to create an idea of chaos, panic, and different reactions of different types of characters for example brave, frightened, drunk characters. We experimented vocal and physical noises such as screams, cries, loads claps, stopping feet to give a ‘theatrical’ version of the shipwreck. Lastly we added percussion instruments to make a ‘drama soundtrack’ of the storm. I particularly enjoyed this session because we got to act it out as if it was actually at the scene, but it wasn’t even acting it out it in a conventional way was all vocal sounds and instruments using key lines in different emotions. I didn’t think you could put something across to sound that dramatic with just a few percussion instruments and screams here and there.

In the second session we used our soundtrack of the storm scene from the session before but added a ‘set’ and movement to make a visual play, including the sounds we had used already. My group used blocks to make a ship and had people falling off the ship into material that was being waved and being wrapped into it to represent the sea. The blocks all got pushed over to show the storm wrecking the ship and killing people. We had people in the background with random screams here and there, crashes with percussion instruments and made it look and sound very chaotic. The first scene is suppose to be dramatic and the show the storm but in Shakespeare’s day they did not have particularly advanced technology so the lines of the scene convey the idea of the storm.
Show More

Related Documents: Tempest Essay

Tempest: The Tempest and Prospero Essay

With the ascent of postcolonial criticism, Prospero – the formerly undisputed protagonist of Shakespeare’s The Tempest – has been increasingly viewed as a character of at best dubious morals, and at worst, an “arrogant and ill-tempered magistrate”: far from the “inspiring magus” of traditional criticism (Kastan 270). In particular, the relationship between Prospero and his servant-monster Caliban has been ever more called into question, the prevailing view being that Shakespeare “clearly wants us…

Words 387 - Pages 2

Tempest: The Tempest and Caliban Essays

Analyzing Shakespeare’s The Tempest Joseph Warton’s literary criticism, “Observations on the Tempest of Shakespeare”, praises Shakespeare’s creativity and poeticism. Reading the criticism gave me a new appreciation of the beauty behind Shakespeare’s well crafted play. Warton discusses Shakespeare’s inventiveness, variety, and consistency of characters, and calls him the “only poet who possesses the power of uniting poetry with propriety of character” (Warton). Overall, Warton’s criticism speaks…

Words 1054 - Pages 5

The Tempest Essay

Muharib Salma (Production by: Emad Alzahrani) (Adopting William Shakespeare play “The Tempest”) A new production for William Shakespeare play is always a challenge because William Shakespeare plays have been overdone and bring something new to it to wow the audience is a quite difficult. In this production, I generally prefer to use comedian plays, having also magic as an essential element. These kinds of plays have the contrast flavour of bitter sweet and the charm of the powerful magic, used…

Words 1466 - Pages 6

The Tempest Essays

The Tempest How does Shakespeare use language to convey Prospero’s character in Act 1 Scene 2? The Tempest is one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays. It was written in 1610 and it is also his last play. One of the main characters in the ‘Tempest’ is Prospero, an old wizard. The play opens with a mighty Tempest strikes the ship when Alonso the King of Naples, Ferdinand the prince of Naples, Sebastian Alonso’s brother and the current duke of Milan, Prospero’s brother Antonio along with Trinculo…

Words 711 - Pages 3

The Tempest Essay

of exploitation towards others keeps them oppressed because they never question their beliefs or what appears to be true. This is true for Prospero, the bourgeoisie who plots against everyone and other characters which are the proletariats in The Tempest written by Shakespeare. Prospero keeps everyone in the island in a state of false consciousness while he manipulates them with his power of the arts. Firstly, isolation has a destructive impact on Miranda’s and Ferdinand’s thoughts and actions. Secondly…

Words 1216 - Pages 5

The Tempest Essays

Act #2 Conspiracy Thesis/Interpretation: In Act 2 of Shakespeare’s The Tempest illustrates conspiracy. So much fighting among the crew members, leads to fight for power amongst themselves for themselves. 1. The conspiracy to murder Alonso is developed, which established that Antonio is still an unpleasant character. b. With everyone trying to be the next king, plotting to get the next man out of office seems like the best way to gain power. Being that, Sebastian is trying conspire with…

Words 415 - Pages 2

Tempest Quotations Essay

September 15, 2014 Jung Eui­Young Tempest Quotations “Good wombs have borne bad sons.” Act 1, Scene 2, Lines 119 This quotation means that ethical women can give birth to dreadful sons. During Shakespeare’s time, a good woman could also mean a woman from a noble or royal family. So a man from a noble bloodline, in this case Antonio, can be as disobedient or mischievous as a man from a lower class, giving the reader a glimpse of who Antonio really is. “You taught me language…

Words 2215 - Pages 9

The Tempest Coursework Essay

The Tempest The modern audience may feel that Caliban draws our sympathy as he is the rightful ruler of the island. Examine Shakespeare's characterisation of Caliban and say whether you would agree with this point of view. Caliban, a central character in Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' is a very complex character, if not the most complex character of Shakespeare's play. The audience is first introduced to the character of Caliban in Act 1 Scene 2 and first impressions of Caliban are gained by the audience…

Words 1082 - Pages 5

Essay Prospero in the Tempest

Character discoveries in The Tempest Prospero Personal responsibility behind holding power. Prospero’s need for revenge catalyses his inner darkness. His thirst and dissociation with the nobles is heavily emphasised in lines such as “false brother”. He discovers that his actions were causing distress and pain to the other characters; his cruelties were finally revealed by Ariel towards the end of the play- “I would so if I were human”. Along-side ‘losing’ his daughter to Ferdinand, Ariel’s line…

Words 2847 - Pages 12

Essay on The Tempest Summary

THE TEMPEST SUMMARY ACT I. Alonso (The King of Naples), Sebastian (Alonso’s brother), Ferdinand (Alonso’s brother), Antonio, Gonzolo and others are all on board a ship, which is battling a huge storm. They are likely to die by shipwreck. Propsero and his daughter Miranda are on an island near the storm. Propsero has created the storm that is battling Alonso and company’s ship. Miranda asks her father to stop the storm. Prospero tells Miranda that he was once the Duke of Milan, but was banished…

Words 726 - Pages 3