Imagination, diverse influences permeate ‘Tempest’ production

It takes some guts to use a lobster as a prop in a Shakespeare production in Maine. The effect can be totally mean-spirited, freakishly corny, or sharply insightful and jocular. Julia Whitworth’s production of “The Tempest,” performed this weekend only at the Stonington Opera House, falls into the last camp, and the quick flash of a plastic lobster carries a subtle message about the play’s deeper themes of innocence, experience and domination.

But hyping the lobster as the only level of meaningful imagery would be a big mistake. Whitworth, with polished guidance by set designer Ray Neufeld, is both gallopingly game and far more sophisticated than that. Stage banners in bold blues and yellow, used to create the sky and the sea and sails, invoke the outdoor art of Kristo. There are other intimations in lighting and tableaux of Vermeer, Caravaggio, Gericault, not to mention Samuel Beckett, Martha Graham and the Keystone Kops.

In other words, this is a production of penetrating surprises and meticulous vision. Whitmore combines post-modern dance with vaudeville, tenderness with tyranny, New York actors with Deer Isle musicians. The result is a stirring production that transports the audience to a brave new world and, strangely enough, to the world in its own back yard, too.

The tale essentially follows the sorcery and machinations of Prospero, who a dozen years before the play’s setting was usurped of his dukedom and then shipwrecked on an island with his baby daughter, Miranda. By the opening of the play, Miranda is 15 and wide-eyed, ready for the facts of life and flips of the heart. Through a conflation of magic and a desire to set history right, Prospero and his “tricksy” assistant Ariel have employed wizardry to summon a tempest that has shipwrecked Prospero’s offenders – and Miranda’s future husband – on the island. The time has come for revenge or forgiveness, differentiation or marriage, slavery or freedom, and the action of the play follows Prospero’s and Miranda’s journeys as they make choices.

“The Tempest” is labeled a romance, but that’s not meant strictly in the boy-meets-girl sense. There is a central love story, but there’s also fantasy, magic, rank (not to mention prank) colonialism and commentary about the nature of beauty, evil, language and attraction.

Whitworth hits all these notes with a stylized and scrupulous ensemble that works together to present an exacting performance with the grace of a schooner at full sail. She has cast Molly Powell as Prospero, which adds gender changes to the text but is not wholly unfounded in the danger, depth and profundity of the character. Powell is mighty in the role, and unfolds a complicated inner world with delicacy and texture. Complementing Powell’s work, Amy Sevick, as Ariel, is a study in muscularity and lissomeness. She is, unto herself, a ballet within the play.

The rest of the roles are shared by only four actors, and frankly, it wasn’t until I read the program that I fully realized the cast was so compact. That’s not to say I didn’t recognize each actor as he or she slipped in and out of costumes, voices, statures. In fact, many of those changes took place onstage. The point is: This small cast of big talents – Logan Healy, David Christopher Wells, Lizzy Cooper Davis, and Shawn Fagan – has a deep trunk of theatricality. There is also an unexpected guest appearance in the second half of the play, but to reveal it would be to steal the unabashed sweetness of the moment.

The actors are sturdily assisted by Daniel T. Denver’s eerie and elegant music performed onstage by local musicians Irene Rissi on viola and violin, Jim Adams on double bass, Bob Haskell on clarinet, Jan Kok on recorders, and Amy Sevick, whose talents just keep on coming as the show progresses, on oboe.

Lighting designer Stephen Brady dapples the stage with tropical nuances, and costumes by Sara Tosetti, with Tinker Crouch, begin with black pants and white button-up shirts – and from there go through athletic twists and turns as actors pop in and out of roles, and up and down on the staging.

The real power of this production, however, is that it is entirely welcoming. Without steeping the play in telegraphed pitches to the audience, Whitworth, like Prospero, has not only created an “art to enchant,” she has tasted the “subtilties o’ the isle” – both Stonington’s and Shakespeare’s, and comes up with a show that is likely to be the most memorable and imaginative of this summer season.

Opera House Arts will present “The Tempest” 7 p.m. Aug. 17-19 at the Stonington Opera House. For reservations, which are recommended, call 367-2788.