RSC's Digital Tempest

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.8 • 878 Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2017

⏱️ 32 minutes

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Summary

Twenty-first-century wizardry meets the seventeenth-century kind in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of "The Tempest" with digital effects created by The Imaginarium, a performance-capture company that’s best known for movie and video game animations. RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran and Ben Lumsden, Imaginarium’s head of studio, are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published June 13, 2017. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode, “My So Potent Art,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. Esther French is the web producer. We had help from the RSC head of press, Philippa Harland; from Ed Walker at Sounding Sweet studios in Stratford-Upon-Avon, Marcia Caldwell and Melissa Kuypers at NPR-West in Los Angeles, and Chris Charles at The Sound Company in London. Enjoy the podcast? Please consider leaving a review.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're sitting in the theater, watching a performance of The Tempest.
0:04.0	Simon Russell Beale is Prospero.
0:06.0	I'm inclined to sleep.
0:08.0	It's a good dullness.
0:13.0	And give it way.
0:16.0	Miranda has just laid down at Prospero's feet as he picks up a staff and summons his
0:21.0	Trixie Spirit servant.
0:23.6	I'm ready now.
0:25.4	Approach my aerial. Come.
0:28.9	But as you sit there, what you see in front of you is not a live actor.
0:34.3	Grave, sir, Hayley.
0:36.8	Instead, a hologram with wispy, ephemeral arms and legs, but with the face of actor Mark
0:43.3	Quartley, floats and tumbles over Prospero's head.
0:47.3	To fly, to swim, to dive into the fire, to ride on the curled clouds.
0:55.6	The king's ship appears against the theatre's back wall,
0:58.8	and at the appointed time, as Ariel floats above it, he bursts into flames.
1:04.0	Places on the top mast, the yards and bowsprit would I flame distinct distinctly then meet and joy.
1:11.6	Joe's Lightning, the precursors of the dreadful thunderclaps.
1:14.6	As you watch, you wonder to yourself,
1:17.6	is this the future of live theater?
1:24.6	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
1:30.0	I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folgers director.
	...

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