The Acting Company, a Tony award-winning theater company, came to perform The Tempest at the Center for the Arts on the UW-Platteville campus on Saturday, March 8.

John Hassig, director of performing and visual arts programs and facilities, said UW-P is perfectly seated to attract plays from companies like The Acting Company that are touring across the U.S.

Submitted by The Acting Company/James Culp
Victoire Charles, top, Robb Martines and Seth Duerr perform in The Tempest. The play came to UW-P March 8.

“Most tours have to pass through Platteville on their way to the major cities in the tri-states,” Hassig said. An advisory board last fall picked The Tempest to appear this spring because of Platteville’s convenient location and the fair price that it was offered at.

The Tempest was Shakespeare’s last play, and while it is predominately a comedy, it also contains elements of drama and romance. It told the tale of a shipwreck that left the main character, Prospero, and his daughter, Miranda, shipwrecked on an island where they discover magical spirits that Prospero bends to do his bidding. While on the island, Miranda falls in love with Ferdinand.

What made this production of The Tempest at the CFA this Saturday unique was Davis McCallum’s spin on the tale. The actors were dressed not only in Elizabethan clothing but costumes from different eras as well.

“Davis McCallum did this to make a statement about the play’s relevance to us as well as historical relevance,” Lewis Magruder, associate producing artistic director, said.

McCallum also altered the setting of the play. While it still takes place on an island, each setting is connected by a scaffolding in center stage that the characters in the play used in various ways.

“What you have to ask yourself is whether or not his choices work,” Magruder said.

Philip Swanson, a freshman that attended the play, thought the play with all its changes was still hard to follow.

“There were three parts: the romance between Miranda and Ferdinand, the part about the Nobility and the part about Prospero. I only understood two of the three parts,” said Swanson.

Overall Swanson said that the play was very good.

“I liked the costuming, music, lighting and staging,” said Swanson, “Parts were very funny, especially parts with the clown character Trinculo.”