Acorn Shakespeare Ensemble's THE TEMPEST Ends Run 4/20

The Acorn Shakespeare Ensemble, presenters of the "Naked Shakespeare" series, announces that the company's abridged version of The Tempest, which will be performed on Thursday, March 18 and Friday, March 19 at Luther Bonny Talbot Hall on the USM Portland campus, will also be performed twice at the St. Lawrence Arts Center on Monday, April 19 and Tuesday, April 20. These added shows will take place on "dark nights" during the upcoming Maine Playwrights Festival. Naked Shakespeare's production of The Tempest features 9 actors from the Naked Shakespeare company and is directed by company member Harlan Baker, who has given the piece a Caribbean flair to evoke the island on which the action of the play takes place. All four performances begin at 7:30 p.m. and are free and open to the public, with a $5 suggested donation

The Tempest is universally believed to be one of the final plays written in the great playwrights' life and reflects a lifetime of careful consideration of the nature of his own art as well his weariness at the nature of living in a corrupt world. The play presents a pastoral vision of a new world where man and nature live in close company; one where values such as forgiveness and loyalty are valued. These themes take on additional meaning when considered in the context of Renaissance times when the exploration of the newly-discovered Americas was in full swing. The relationship between Prospero, representing the colonizing powers, and Caliban, representing the Native Americans, raises timeless issues regarding the nature of conquest and resettlement, issues that are very much part of the word today.

In order to better focus the attention of the audience as well as make the production more able to tour, one of the play's sub-plots, the scheme of Antonio and Sebastian to kill Alonso, the King of Naples, was removed and the remainder of the text trimmed to fit into a 75-minute, intermission-free performance timeframe. The play was condensed in this manner in order to make the production more suitable for touring to colleges and universities in the future. Naked Shakespeare has a strong commitment to bringing the company's work to academic institutions, having toured a shortened version of Macbeth to area high schools since 2006, and The Tempest is a text well-suited to the collegiate environment as it is a play often studied in literature classes.

The Shakespeare Ensemble's mission is to educate its audience about the meaning behind Shakespeare's text by using acting to simply demonstrate the broad range of intricate emotion, theme and language. By offering free presentations in intimate venues frequented by non-traditional theater audiences, Acorn strives to increase appreciation and awareness of the extraordinary language present in Shakespeare's plays and the universality of his characters. All Naked Shakespeare performances are presented with minimal sets, lighting, costumes, and props in order to focus attention on the language and allow the audience to imaginatively create the world of the play in a manner that hearkens back to the way Shakespeare's plays were originally performed. The performances are staged environmentally, allowing for the actors to freely interact with the audience, causing them to become more active participants firmly anchored in the world of the play.

Call Acorn Productions at 854-0065 or visit www.nakedshakespeare.org for more information about Naked Shakespeare or any other programs offered by Acorn Productions.

 

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