Reviews of Tempest in a Teapot

Bring the Bard to Life in Webisodes
By Patrick Langston
Ottawa Citizen, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2008

 

Coming soon to a screen near you: Shakespeare. Sort of. On a very small screen. With a doo-wop trio.
 

On Monday, Ottawa's A Company of Fools launches "Tempest in a Teapot" - its hilarious take on Shaksepeare's romantic comedy "The Tempest" - at its website (fools.ca) and on Facebook. It will be the first of 12 weekly webisodes, with each show archived for future viewing (a trailer is already online).
 

In case you missed the original production at NAC's Fourth Stage last fall, the play, part spoof and part tribute to Shakespeare, includes a show-stopping song about abstinence, ample clowning, and, among its props, paper dolls. The often-ignored racism that colors his plays also gets a full airing. Somehow, the Fools manage to include enough of the original storyline that neither "The Tempest" nor Shakespeare's brilliance are ever entirely lost.
 

"We'd been kicking around the idea of shooting for television for awhile, but it always seemed like a really big thing to do with a pilot and all the episodes," says the Fools' artistic director Scott Florence, who also directed the show. "And an indie film was out of range for cost."
 

So when a mutual friend who'd seen the stage play suggested that Florence meet with Ottawa webcaster Kevin Burton, owner of Nat Cap Productions, Florence jumped at the chance.
 

Original cast members Margo MacDonald, AL Connors and Emmanuelle Zeesman appear in the internet version, which was filmed in one marathon day late last year at the Ottawa School of Speech and Drama.
 

Florence says the Fools chose the webisode format with its classic cliffhanger appeal because "most internet users don't want to sit in front of a screen for 1.5 hours. People want short, quick hits on the internet."
 

Running the play on the web will, Florence hopes, give the 18-year-old troupe exposure across the country as well as footage for promotional packages. It's also a chance to test drive a relatively unknown concept - presenting a pay in episodes on the Internet - for a company that's never eschewed risk-taking including mounting a show in a van.
 

"We don't have a lot of money or time," says Florence, "and when you're creating shows, you want them to have a longer life than just a couple of weeks."
  

Critic's Picks - Theatre
Patrick Langston, Ottawa Citizen, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2008

 

Never ones to be mired in the dusty technology of the early 17th century, A Company of Fools takes Shakespeare - well, a Fool's version, at any rate - to the Internet starting Sept. 22. That's when the company launches Tempest in a Teapot, left, at www.fools.ca, a 12-webisode remounting of last year's hilarious Fourth Stage production (you can see a trailer at the site right now). The show, to be released over 12 weeks, puts the Fools' own irreverent, part homage/part-parody twist on "The Tempest" with original songs, reminders of Shakespeare's slippages into racism and his talent for banal denouements, and cheeky speculation on The Bard's sexual orientation.
  

Reviews of the Original Staging of Tempest in a Teapot
National Arts Centre, Fourth Stage
November 2007

 

Tempest Delivers More Good Than Bad
Written by Patrick Langston, The Ottawa Citizen
Published Friday, November 23, 2007

If the demand for monsters ever dries up, Caliban could always make it as a doo-wop singer. He could, that is, if you believe Company of Fools' hilarious take on Shakespeare's The Tempest, rechristened Tempest in a Teapot and now at the National Arts Centre's Fourth Stage. Al Connors plays the half-man/half-fish Caliban who carries a mean bass line in the doo-wop trio of himself, the sorcerer Prospero (Margo MacDonald) and Prospero's daughter, Miranda (Emmanuelle Zeesman). The musical interlude is one of several absurd tangents that the three navigate as they zip -- with surprising detail, considering the amount of clowning along the way -- toward the conclusion of their much-edited version of the Bard's revered romantic comedy.
 
That The Tempest is so revered makes it ripe for the Fools' wit. Introduced to its Fourth Stage audience last night by creator and director Scott Florence as "the world premiere of a Canadian interpretation" (this is, after all, the NAC, home of many such grand firsts), Tempest in a Teapot is both a send-up of Shakespeare and a toast to him. One minute the actors, who play multiple roles, are reminding us of the racism and banal denouements that dog Shakespeare's plays. The next they're running The Tempest's lines absolutely straight (speaking of which, they also speculate on the playwright's -- Shakespeare's, not Florence's -- sexual orientation). The three use everything from paper dolls to physical comedy and puns to tell Shakespeare's jam-packed story of an island, a shipwreck, magic, young love and political intrigue. Zeesman has also composed some terrific songs including a show-stopping paean to abstinence.
 
The Fools couldn't do any of this, or at least not so well, if they didn't know and love Shakespeare, warts and all. Their Critics Corner interlude shows they also know how sour-faced theatre reviewers can let self-importance turn their judgments nasty.
 
There are, ahem, weaknesses in Tempest in a Teapot. Silliness, for example, trounces wit when Caliban joins Stephano and Trinculo, two crew members from the ship that runs aground on Prospero's island, in their drinking binge and the scene lags. But hey, take the little bit of bad with the heaps of good, and catch the show before, like Prospero's island, it's gone.
 

Read all about us on the following blogs:

 


Guerilla Blog