Join us for an evening showing of The Tempest Project, a Balinese-style shadow puppet show in tribute to Peter Brook. Return to that magical island!
OCTOBER 15th, 7pm at Noe Valley Town Square, San Francisco, CA- Free!
We are so excited to be back at Noe Valley Town Square for another Balinese-style shadow performance.
This event will be OUTDOORS. Please dress appropriately for the weather. There will be limited seating provided by the Town Square, so please bring a chair, pillows or blankets to sit on if you’d like!
Picnics welcome too.
Peter Brook, who passed away recently at the age of 96, was known for his deep involvement with Shakespeare, and for his marathon staging of the Mahabharata. His last project was an exploration of Shakespeare’s final play, The Tempest, with his international cast of actors. He was after the sense of magic, mystery, and ritual which was alive in Elizabethan England.
He did not consider this to be a new version of the Tempest, as much as a distillation of its essence, a quest for freedom and forgiveness. His metaphor for the stage is, An Empty Space,
where anything can happen.
My equivalent, as a shadow master, to his empty space is the blank white screen - a place for dreams, which can also be quite intimidating. I have been involved with various productions of the Tempest for the past sixty years, and Balinese culture for the past fifty. I played Caliban in high school, and fell in love with every aspect of the play. When I first saw Balinese theater in 1970, with its lively combination of high drama and low comedy, I was immediately reminded of Shakespeare.
Many years later, having become a shadow master, I performed a complete version of the Tempest as a traditional Balinese shadow play. It was easy to cast. The archetypal characters in Shakespeare had almost exact equivalents in Bali. We performed outdoors at a festival, and during the harpy scene the sprinklers went off and soaked the audience. I have come back to different versions of The Tempest every ten years since high school.
This Tempest Project is my exploration of Peter Brook’s last act. It was published this year in Jean-Claude Carriere’s excellent translation, and I am rendering his French back into Shakespeare. These two men are my greatest heroes, and I am very excited to share their discoveries with you. It is shorter, and lighter than the original. It is an offering in an age of violence to the healing power of music, dance and theater, and an ode to freedom and forgiveness.
Wayang Kulit, the Balinese shadow puppet theater, takes place on a small screen illuminated by a coconut oil flame. The dalang, or shadow master, plays all the parts and is accompanied by four musicians playing gamelan gender wayang, (dedicated shadow theater music). Our performance will take place outdoors.
– Larry Reed
