Extracts from a presentation by Director, Michael Grandage

"My aim is to present a difficult play in an open, free, epic and intimate style. The Tempest is set on an island and is open to many interpretations. The most common is colonialism where characters such as Caliban (the true owners of the Island) are taken over by others - generally white people. I don't want to go down that road. I feel that Shakespeare is saying many, many important things and I'd like to address some of those in this production. This interpretation appeals to me - Prospero on this island as stage manager of events - a creator of theatrical magic.

Challenges for the Director
The first directorial challenge in staging The Tempest is that you never usually hear a word of what anyone is saying in the opening scene because of the sounds of the storm. I've come up with the idea that we get all of the noise of the storm, then just at the moment the dialogue starts, we pass through the eye of the storm and enter a very eerie world. As they go through the eye of the storm the characters have no idea what their fate is. The great joy is that the audience will hear every word.

I then hope to create a fantastic, seamless transition taking the audience from the tempest at sea to Prospero on his island. The tempest is being conjured up out of Prospero's imagination and I want to link these images and find a way of the storm disappearing into his books. The technical demands of the show are monumental with a play which is all about magic and conjuring.

The masque is also a difficult directorial 'nut to crack'. I have always felt, in some productions I have seen of The Tempest, that there is this weird set piece; people come in singing opera, doing all sorts of things! I've never really seen the masque for what it is - wedding gift from Prospero to Miranda and Ferdinand, a show performed by Ariel and his spirits. This event needs to be well woven into the fabric of the play.

I won't make the decision on the staging of the end of the epilogue until late in rehearsals. Prospero reconciles himself and forgives the lords who have usurped him as the rightful Duke of Milan. Prospero gives up his magic and frees his spirit, Ariel, and leaves Caliban to inhabit the island. The audience is asked to release him from the island, by their goodwill, and allow him to return to Milan. It's a wonderful act at the end of the play in which the audience release him from the island. Asking Derek Jacobi (Prospero) to enter the auditorium, with the house lights up, is just one option for me at the end of an extraordinarily beautiful elegy - it's not really like a play, that's why for me as a director it's one of the most difficult of Shakespeare's plays.

So far I've directed Shakespeare's plays where there's a strong narrative - histories and comedies - where there is a motivation in each scene that catapults you into the next, until its conclusion. There is a journey and there is a conclusion to The Tempest, but it's a poetic narrative and a lot of the play is static. Act 1 Scene 2 is one of the longest scenes in a Shakespeare play - Prospero is telling his daughter Miranda the whole history of the play. All of the plot is explained in this one scene, and I've never directed a scene like that, with a massive amount of plot, two figures, static text that doesn't move anything on but sets everything up. I'm blessed with actors such as Derek Jacobi and Claire Price, great speakers of Shakespeare. I'm confident, in their hands, that the text will just come to life and the audience will be totally engaged."

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