We watched a Stratford production on television last night, thanks to COVID-19. Their season would have started this week.
We say Martha Henry play Prospero in The Tempest in the 2018 season of Stratford. She was 80 years old. Her first season was 44 years before that and she played Miranda to William Hutt's first Prospero in The Tempest. What a wonderful experience for her of completion.
The original play has Prospero as a duke rather than a duchess. Was it even possible to have a duchess? It did seem to me that it is more traditional for a duchess to be the wife or widow of a duke. But it was possible for a duchess to hold the rank equivalent to a duke in her own right and there are 16 Italian duchesses listed in Wikipedia.
Prospero portrayed as a woman is strikingly in contrast with the play's otherwise male roles/cast. Wikipedia includes a section on the feminist interpretations of the play.
"The Tempest is a play created in a male dominated culture and society, a gender imbalance the play explores metaphorically by having only one major female role, Miranda. Miranda is fifteen, intelligent, naive, and beautiful."
That must have been a tricky area to address in the staging of the play and for Martha Henry to give meaningful interpretation of the character. There would have been many explorations and workshops to bring this version alive.
And the last of our pear trees on John Street were blooming a few days ago. You can easily recognize a pear with its vertical structure. All the other fruit trees have an open vase shape.
