The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 30

C-4 Thursday, January 25, 1996 SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER TEMPEST from C-l 'Tempest' reopens Geary Theater and howling winds of James Le-Brecht's sound design, the stage is filled with a billowing, wind-whipped sail. Shadows of struggling mariners (shadow play by Larry Reed) fill the sail, as other sailors appear on a swaying bridge above it, pulling on ropes and dangling from a rope ladder. No, you can't really hear Shakespeare's dialogue in the creative chaos and the words projected on the sail are more likely to amuse those who know the script than inform those who don't. But that's strong. Perloff and her cast deliver a "Tempest" that blows hot and cold.

It's an entertaining, generally attractive production that falls short of both its aspirations and the manifold riches of the script. Much of this is due to Perloffs casting of Strathairn, an intelligent movie actor with extensive experience in modern plays, in one of Shakespeare's meatier roles. Despite the convincing case made for a younger-than-usual Prospero in Stephen Orgel's excellent program notes, there are many good reasons why this part is generally considered a prime challenge for a veteran Shakespearean actor. Strathairn is a thoughtful, and at times playful and driven, usurped Duke of Milan in exile, ruling one of the first choices any director of "The Tempest" has to make. Either you play the skimpy dialogue of the first scene for the shreds you glean about characters we won't really meet for a while in which case the storm has to struggle to make an impact or you open with a bang.

Perloff has opted for a storm that will take the theatergoer's mind off anything else, and has done so with spectacular theatricality. That, too, is a good part of what Perloffs "Tempest is all about Just as the gold of the stage curtain reflects the delicate gold leaf that adorns the ornate rosettes of the barrel vault above, her "Tempest" reflects back upon the artifice of the theater itself. Borrowing and adapting a device from Giorgio Strehler's stunning Piccolo Teatro of Milan production (seen at L.A.'s Olympic Arts Festival in 1984), Perloff underscores Prospero's renunciation of his magic arts by renouncing theatrical artifice. The house lights come up. The curtains and the hanging paper cyclorama of Kate Edmunds' set are suddenly whisked away to reveal the bare theater walls, ladders and lighting instruments behind.

It's a finale as strikingly effective as the opening storm, some two hours and 40 minutes before, the perfect anti-theatrical setting for Strathairn's gently understated epilogue. Unfortunately, what comes in between isn't always as entire story of Miranda's life. Kelly is a bright, hyperactive, highly physical Ariel, more intensely focused than most on achieving the freedom Prospero has promised and cleverly mimicking the human actions he observes. He's agile and omnipresent as the prime purveyor of the play's magic, whether popping out of trap doors, descending on ropes or appearing in shadow. He beautifully renders Lang's eerily meditative settings of Ariel's songs with their ghostly echoes of Robert Johnson's originals from Shakespeare's time.

It's Graham Beckel's Caliban, however, that first kicks this "Tempest" into gear again after the storm scene. Big, boisterous and brutish, with a thunderous voice and feral cunning, his is the character that most convincingly grows in understanding and embodies the play's theme of redemption in the end. Of course, it doesn't hurt that his scenes are beautifully filled out by the delicious comic duo of Michael Tucker and Geoff Hoyle. Tucker's Trinculo is a superb See TEMPEST, C-6 his little island with magical flourishes brought wonderfully to life by Reed's shadow play and Lang's mysteriously billowing strains. He's particularly good in establishing a deep, multi-layered paternal bond with Vera Farmiga, as the grown Miranda, and a wispy affection for his spirit servant Ariel (David Patrick Kelly).

He isn't, however, a commanding Prospero. It isn't just that his understated delivery fails to evoke the music of his lines. His voice lacks resonance, and doesn't carry well (I'm told) to the balconies. His presence, though engaging, seems lacking in the stature of command. Then too, his is a Prospero who relishes his revenge on his enemies so heartily that his conversion to mercy is less a process drawn from the action than a sudden, almost inexplicable reversal.

Farmiga is a wonderfully bright naif as Miranda, overflowing with interest in her father's tale of their past life and delightful in the giddiness of her unfeigned delight when she meets young Ferdinand (a genial Daniel Cantor). She overdoes a tendency, however, to invest each of her lines with the drama of the HO ST- mm "tfHIH.Vl'ili. Jill 'Jb C4X 3 3 ll.i 1 11 1 I'll' 13 II Atll 111 'i ii SHOWS DAILY IN IN Grumpier OLD MEN STILL YELLING. STILL FIGHTING. STILL READY FOR LOVE.

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P.O Bx 7260 San Francisco, CA 94 1 20 -Joe Leydon, NBC-TV, HOUSTON KJK ADVANCE TIC Kt'l AM) SH I IMt-S CMt 777-FHM OH wsit For mor Wormatkm v1 the Sony Pctort EitikwTiot Site at htlp www nnny com or GO SCREAMERS on ComouSwve. No purchase iwccftsiry. Entries musl be received by Silurday, January 27. Winners oill he chinen hy random drawing The Krcening will he in San Francisco Ihe week of January 2 Kmplnyees of ihe San Franciscu luaminer. HoHywond Pictures iir any of ihcir affiliated aecncies are not ehpihlc Christian Mary Stuart Slater Masterson mummvm miwimm mmim mmmm -mms famelasegah josh broun nraim sksi ojosEfimw mm "iiiin DLlffl EiXlOiiaCOLDLWntl NDVUNEftNFMAg Starts Tornorrozu AMC KaB! PoMFillmore 931-9600 Al.KXANDKIA THF.ATRE Plaza twin DflivCitv.ani flirj7 TomurrtTw: 12 45, 3 00, 1 1:35, 1:35, 5:50, DOLBY STEREO Ttmrnmnr.

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