Review: The Tempest

What's in a costume?

Student Shakespeare adaptations can be, truthfully, quite boring. Shakespeare’s brilliance is painfully dulled when attempted by drama enthusiasts with little knowledge of the rhythm and sounds he uses, interested only in remembering long soliloquies, often without feeling. 

Please, do not be alarmed by my theatrical purism.

Mermaids’ most recent production of The Tempest was successful in its curation of a mercurial, otherworldly aesthetic, as well as in its slapstick, bawdy elements, captured with enormous enthusiasm by the chorus. 

I sat high in the bleachers of Stage601, eagerly waiting to view the truly exquisite costumes of which I had seen photos before the show. 

The sound of rope hitting the stage, the relentless rush of crashing waves — I looked up from the mobile programme and there: Ariel, playing with a ship in a bottle, and just behind this charming spirit, two sailors skipping, then falling over while their captain steered with difficulty. This split between the forestage and mainstage epitomised the ‘A’ plot and ‘B’ plot: Ariel controlled the fate of the ship, a toy in his mischievous hands, while the sailors provided equal and opposite levity through physical comedy. 

Daniel Ribardo’s performance as Ariel maintained my attention for the full two hours of the production. Flitting about the stage, twitching, answering his master, Prospero’s every word with a tilt of the head, Ribardo was bewitching. Even more eye-catching, his neck collar of feathers and his ‘wings’: gauzy white material connecting his frontispiece with his arms, and a darker, more oblique navy for his back. 

Speaking to Levi Macleod, the Head Costumer, showed me how intentional these design choices were and how integral to the success of the play good costuming really is. 

“To see [your designs] go from scratch, just conceptualisation to [then] on stage is the most satisfying thing,” Macleod explained. In his fourth role as a costume designer, he found seeing the actors in character was crucial to getting their costumes right: “I came to rehearsal and saw the birdlike mannerisms [of Ariel],” and realised, “we’re going birdy.” This was a pivot from his initial ideas for what he called “the most important costume in the show.” With a text as repeatedly performed as The Tempest, the collaboration of costume designers, actors, and directors is the key which unlocks the reinvention of a well-worn play without sacrificing its essence. Macleod’s thoughtful designs and craftsmanship, alongside the efforts of the assistant costumer, Ben Stockil, crowned the show on Monday night. 

It was not just Ariel’s costume I found enthralling; almost part of the set, cloaked in his fishing nets and bruised purple, green, yellow, and blue, Caliban’s earthy and animalistic appearance only complemented the acting Jack Dams so unselfconsciously perfected. Low to the ground, hunched, almost ball-like in stance, the moment that Dans crawled from under the stage to crouch at Prospero’s feet produced a singular moment of breathholding focus from the audience. 

The seething rages of Prospero (given a lucid power by Orsolya Haynes) and Caliban were likewise embellished by the choice of costume. Haynes was, according to Macleod, never going to be dressed in a skirt. The production team felt that the femininity they assigned to the ordinarily male role of Prospero would be limited without the practicality of more masculine clothing; they were “less focused on portraying gender and more on what she would be wearing as someone who does magic.” 

The crew had a firm grip on the intricacies of the play: the lightness of Ariel’s costume perfectly matched the piercing beauty of his song, voiced hauntingly well by Ribardo, while the darker, less ‘floaty’ costumes of Caliban and Prospero reflect their more corporeal realities and emotions. It is magic that underpins The Tempest, as Macleod suggests. This enchantment is the silver thread that binds together not only the costumes of Mermaids’ production, but the links between cast members, the connection to the text, and the performance as a whole.

Photos courtesy of Emily Allen