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Shakespearean
actor Armstrong in one-man Doctor
Prospero By Liam Otten "Good writers borrow; great writers steal." The adage seems written for William Shakespeare, who based The Winter's Tale on a story by Robert Greene; Macbeth on a history by Raphael Holinshed; and Romeo and Juliet on a long poem by Arthur Brooke, to name just a few. For the character of Prospero, the wizened magician whose thirst for vengeance powers The Tempest, a likely model is John Dee (1527-1609), personal philosopher and astrologer to Elizabeth I.
The special, one-night-only performance begins at 8 p.m. Nov. 2 in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre in Mallinckrodt Student Center. The performance is sponsored by the Performing Arts Department, with additional support from the departments of English and Comparative Literature, all in Arts & Sciences. One of the foremost British scholars and scientists of his day, Dee was the first to apply Euclidean geometry to navigation. He built a personal library that was the greatest in England and is supposed to have put a hex on the Spanish Armada. He traveled widely and in exalted company: In 1563, he attended Maximilian II's coronation as Holy Roman Emperor and, in 1583-84, journeyed from London to Prague and Kraków with Polish Prince Albert Laski. Yet in 1589, after a series of mysterious séances, Dee was exiled from the Holy Roman Empire and, destitute, began making his way back to Britain, where he was dogged by accusations of conjuring. In 1604, his petition to be cleared of such slanders was rejected by King James I. The Tempest, written in 1610 or 1611, is the last of Shakespeare's stage works. The story centers on the mysterious Prospero, master of an enchanted island, who uses his powers to shipwreck a party of travelers. Prospero, we learn, is the rightful Duke of Milan but, some 12 years prior, had been betrayed and set adrift (with his daughter, Miranda) by two of the refugees: Antonio, his brother, and Alonso, the king of Naples. Now, with the aid of the spirit Ariel, Prospero orchestrates both the traitors' repentance and the marriage of Miranda to Alonso's son, Ferdinand. Doctor Prospero, written by Stephen Davies, imagines a meeting between the great playwright, embarking on his final masterpiece, and the disgraced, elderly Dee, reduced to selling penny horoscopes. "(Dee) fears that he will be remembered not as a deep and Christian philosopher, but as a conjurer of demons and a trafficker with Satan," Davies explained in an artist's statement. The Bard, meanwhile, "needs to create the character of a powerful magician who can command the winds and the waves and summon the spirits to do his bidding.
Armstrong, a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, has performed Shakespeare in more than 30 countries worldwide, including title roles in Richard III and Macbeth, as well as a highly regarded performance as Shylock in the Salisbury Playhouse's The Merchant of Venice. Other roles include Cassius in Julius Caesar and Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 1998, Armstrong wrote and starred in his first solo play, Shylock, which explored a kaleidoscope of fictional and historic figures -- Pontius Pilot and Adolf Hitler, Dracula and the Wandering Jew -- that have shaped our reading of Shakespeare's most controversial invention. (Armstrong performed the work for the University's Edison Theatre OVATIONS! Series in January 2001). Shylock has since been published in English, translated and performed in Catalan and Spanish, and this fall enjoys its Italian premiere. Armstrong is a founding member of the Made in Wales Stage Company, dedicated to contemporary playwriting, and of the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff, where he has directed both classical and new works. His productions of Sherlock Holmes -- The Last Act and The Gospel of St. John are currently on tour. He is also an associate director of the American touring company Actors From the London Stage and plays the role of Sean on the BBC's The Archers, the world's longest-running radio serial. Tickets are $20 -- $10 for students and senior citizens -- and are available through the Edison Theatre Box Office, 935-6543, and all MetroTix outlets. For further information, call 935-6543. |
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