The TempestShakespeare

week 201315 - 18 April 2013

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.Sometimes a thousand twangling instrumentsWill hum about mine ears, and sometime voicesThat, if I then had waked after long sleep,Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,The clouds methought would open and show richesReady to drop upon me that, when I waked,I cried to dream again.

Caliban III, ii

Thursday 18 April

9.15 Shakespeare Graduate ConferenceThe annual all-day conference, now in its fifth year, with papers (in English and Italian) given by doctoral candidates and recent PhDs from Italian universities on the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Sessions will be chaired by Professor Fernando Cioni (University of Florence) and Professor Shaul Bassi (University of Venice). For details see the website.

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is! O brave

new world, that has such people

in’t!

Miranda V, i

Con il patroncinio di

Monday 15 April

16:00 Public Reading of The Tempest

All are welcome to come and listen or to join in on the reading. Shakespeare is meant to be read aloud, everything is right there in the dialogue. Without sets, props or costumes we read the play as a group finding new meaning in the magic of hearing the lines spoken. While read primarily in English, readers are welcome to read aloud in other languages.

19:30 Film: Peter Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books (1991)

Peter Greenaway’s rich and dense visualisation of Prospero’s world (through the 24 books he is imagined to have consulted in his island exile, on subjects such as cosmology, pornography, music, magic, etc.) relies on the central performance of John Gielgud, who plays all the parts. ‘To some degree, the relentless proliferation of ideas smothers the dramatic highs and lows, but this is a minor quibble compared to the sheer ambition and audacity of the overall conception’ (Time Out). Original and revealing.

Tuesday 16 April

16:00Film: Julie Taymor’s The Tempest (2010)

Taymor, perhaps taking her cue from Greenaway and Jarman, gives us a kitsch and overwrought blast of sound and fury with Helen Mirren as the now feminised Prospera in this daring and controversial reworking of the play. ‘Ms. Taymor’s overscaled sense of stage spectacle can be impressive and effective, even moving, but her three-dimensional, high-volume compositions translate awkwardly into the cosmos of cinema, which turns her pageantry into mummery and the physical exuberance she likes to draw from performers into mugging’ (New York Times). A storm in a teacup?

18:00 Exhibition: VIRTUE AND VENGEANCEImagination, ingenuity and visionary style take centre stage in the FAST Fashion Design students’ thematic exploration of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

Students from Florence University of the Arts’ fashion school present sketches and finished pieces from three departments: Fashion Design Studio, Decoration and Embellishment, and Apparel Design.

Wednesday 17 April

18.00 Lecture: The Tempest in a Span of TimeAlessandro Serpieri

The eminent Italian Shakespearean scholar Alessandro Serpieri is Professor Emeritus at the University of Florence, where he received a chair in 1971. He was President of the Association for Semiotic Studies from 1979 to 1983, and President of AIA (Associazione Italiana di Anglistica) from 1991 to 1993. In 1992 he won the Premio Mondello for his translation of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, in 1998 the Monselice Prize for his translation of the first quarto of Hamlet. La Tempesta, translated and introduced by him, was published in 2006 by Marsilio in Venice.

20.00Film: Derek Jarman’s The Tempest (1979)

Derek Jarman’s decidedly weird, voluptuously camp and delightfully magical Shakespeare-light version of the play features off-beat locations (the ruined Stoneleigh Abbey), is packed with exotic bric-à-brac and magic lantern effects and has a jokey show-stopping cabaret rendition of ‘Stormy Weather’ (what else?) but is never less than an intriguing and compelling engagement with the play and its issues. ‘The actors might be good, but it’s impossible to tell…There are no poetry, no ideas, no characterizations, no narrative, no fun’ (New York Times). Sui generis.

Flout’em and scout’em And scout’em and flout’em Thought is free.Stefano III, iii