Things to look forward to: Julie Taymor's take on The Tempest, starring Helen Mirren as a female version of Prospero. An interview was well as film clipses, and it looks like Taymor's gorgeous visual imagination is working wonders. Of course, a great director and a great actor do not guarantee a good Shakespeare movie - I'm not a fan of Prospero's Books, John Gielgud and his voice not withstanding - but I'm an optimist. Also, The Tempest is suc h layered play, open to so many interpretations. Helen Mirren in the interview I just linked observes that making Prospero Prospera removes the patriarchic subtext, but the colonial one is still possible. There's also the question of how much in control, or not, you play Propero in general; the most fascinating production of The Tempest I saw, three years ago in Stratford, with Patrick Stewart as Prospero, went against what I was used to before by presenting Prospero as a shaman driven half-mad by his exile, and the crucial scene with him and Ariel in which Ariel says were he human, he’d be moved to pity played this as a shattering realisation for Prospero, not something thoughtfully commented. I used to see Prospero as the anti-Lear, in control but at the end able to genuinenly give up power whereas Lear never is in control and only gives up the responsibility, not the niceties of power to begin with, but in that production they had a lot in common beyond being Shakesperean terrible old men. (My review is here.)

If Prospero is Prospera, a female magician who was overthrown by men (I assume the rest of the cast retains their gender) and now has her chance at revenge, but at the end works through to forgiveness – I’m really curious of how that will feel, text and subtext wise. Also how that will impact the relationship with Caliban (whose late mother Sycorax was a witch, after all) in performance.

Footnote I: in Birthday Letters, Ted Hughes in one poem casts his mother-in-law, Aurelia Plath, as a female Prospero. Can’t think of other examples.

Footnote II: Caliban's Hour by Tad Williams is one of the most frustrating retellings of the Tempest because I come pretty close to loving it. There are just two problems I have with it, and they are huge. On the plus side, it's a great and poetic Caliban pov, several years after the play, telling his story, and he's the hero there and Prospero the villain it's no simple black and white reversal; Prospero comes across as a fascinating ambiguous character. On the minus side, firstly there's the narrative frame - Caliban tells this story to Miranda after he found her again, ostensibly to kill her but really to make her understand what she and Prospero did to him. However, our author never gives her the chance to reply, which, given that the point of the tale where Miranda goes from treating Caliban as a playmate to treating him as a servant, as well as her later reaction to a certain event, is pretty crucial, is frustrating. (I have that problem with Sandor Marais' Burning Embers as well. Stories in which the narrator tells the story to demonstrate to his listener how much the listener has betrayed him/sucks/whatever, and in which the author never allows the listener a genuine reply just frustrate me.) Secondly, the solution of the story is a dea ex machina one via Miranda's daughter, and that made me think You've got to be kidding me in its glibness. So, Caliban's Hour = two thirds great, one third frustration.

Fannish links:

Marvelverse, movie edition:

Common Cause: in which Natasha, aka the Black Widow from Iron Man II meets Mystique post X3. I hated what X3 did to Mystique (among many other things) but likeadeuce is Rumpelstilskin and spins it into gold in this elegant Le Carré feeling tale of two women with a past, not via a fix-it but through character exploration.


Angel:

My boy builds coffins: a Connor vid, which is about the impact others have on him and he has on everyone else's fates as well as a character portrait. Reminds me again of why I was so gripped by his entire storyline.