Why raise a tempest? – conclusion: about the dire business of forgiving

I am really sorry to realize that, even though MY OWN patience is almost stretched to the limit, there are still two detours to take before I come to the “point” – which I even already made by completely agreeing with Simon Russell Beale that “The Tempest” is about forgiveness – or, more precisely, about the act of FORGIVING - accepting his proof. But especially in this case it turned out to be much more important HOW I came to this acceptance, and why it has been so difficult for me, than actually coming to it. And I am SOOO pleased that these posts about “The Tempest” have become “covert” posts about the THEATRE, as a specific form of existence of texts, which I have only hinted at so far, and which has become so much more important than it had been for decades because of “Shakespeare”.

The first detour is about TRAGEDY, and it threatened to become really long because I always get entangled in “The Crucible” and “Macbeth” and whatnot …, but I cut it short. I think I re-discovered tragedy seeing “The Crucible” because it feels contemporary – whereas I usually “stay clear” of it reading “Shakespeare”, at least where the tragedies are concerned. But I am always so pleased to “dig up” the tragic bits in Shakespeare’s comedies … In “The Crucible” I wasn’t able to stay clear of it, mostly, I think, because of what happened when I suddenly became aware of my memories about the film, kind of “sitting there”, as a cluster of emotions, which I was able to compare to what happened when I saw the theatre production. That was how I became aware that it must have been one of these texts that have “changed my life”, in the sense that it has fundamentally changed my way of feeling and thinking about at least one important real life issue. But I didn’t get this at the time, I only realized it later because of what happened when I saw it again, as a play. And I am still wondering why I really didn’t - and don’t! - want to go anywhere near that text. There definitely is a very sore spot still, of the kind that, IF I TOUCHED IT, I would become aware that it will never really heal. And THIS, by the way, IS WHAT TRAGEDY DOES.

Tragedy is “tragic” because of the things that are already there, in us. Maybe what made me consciously understand tragedy in “The Crucible”, probably for the first time, was Richard Armitage’s conviction that what John Proctor did was ALWAYS GOING TO HAPPEN. Tragedy, when it really works, is about these most personal of predicaments which were always going to happen ONE WAY OR THE OTHER. Luckily, they usually don’t become the stuff of opera, or greek tragedy, and everybody usually thinks that they can keep them contained. Macbeth and John Proctor are doing everything in their power to stop it AFTER they have spilled the beans. Both of their lives became tragic because they were “weak”. On the other hand, there isn’t a real choice where tragedy is concerned because it is just another kind of weakness to absolutely deny yourself to be who you are, or want to be.

I think I understood a lot of this watching “The Crucible”, or permanently thinking about “Macbeth”, but I didn’t ANALYZE it in the way I instantly did when I saw Simon Russell Beale perform his shrewd analysis of the play. I probably still haven’t explained HOW his pathetic roaring can be called an analysis, but in fact it “said” more than even Shakespeare could say in so many words. In the first place he selected Prospero’s “tragic” moment – as he did in “Lear” – and performed it in a way that should leave the audience in no doubt about this being the moment when Prospero hits rock bottom – just heartbeats before he turns his story round and emerges as the hero of his own life for the first time on that stage. So, in his case, everything turns out fine. No tragedy.

Nonetheless I just loved him for giving Prospero this moment. I think this is exactly what has to HAPPEN on the stage to “identify” tragic content and make it work on us. And it is something that cannot happen in the same way anywhere else as it does in a theatre. I think I consciously understood this for the first time writing my post about the RSC’s “Othello” (now on dvd!!!), noticing that there is always something missing where Othello is concerned and stating that there is NOTHING DIGNIFIED about him taking his own life. Or rather that I felt that there shouldn’t be. What should be there instead is this moment of self-annihilation corresponding to suicide which I have never seen being PLAYED even though Shakespeare WROTE it. I suppose because it is what nobody WANTS to understand and take on himself. And I must say that I can understand this even though I am still “looking forward” to seeing it someday. But, without it, the play, in my understanding, is somehow incomplete, and this says a lot about how important the tragic experience actually is. It is something “we” WANT to happen on the stage when we go to see “Othello”, and it has to happen at a certain moment, even though there might be a discussion about the exact moment, for example in “Lear”. I was always very unconcerned about him cursing the skies when he is already “mad”, but the moment of consciously realizing this, that Simon Russell Beale singled out, made my blood freeze. Maybe his is even the most important part of it: the moment the character loses his dignity. As in “The Crucible”, of course, when there is JUST fear of death and nothing else. It is like a necessary step “we” have to take to get to the “gratifying” part of the tragic experience.

And it is so interesting, in these three cases I described, how different the actors probably felt about this moment. I am basically guessing now, of course. I think, Hugh Quarshie didn’t WANT this moment, he wanted Othello to stay “dignified”, which, in my opinion, was wrong. But nonetheless, as an attitude towards tragedy, I have great respect for it because I regard it as an honest human reaction to this kind of “imposition”. Tragedy is NOT what anybody would CHOOSE, and this has to become clear on the stage.

I think that Simon Russell Beale is exactly the opposite: He didn’t think of Lear as a tragic character in the first place, and I think he is right about this. He still knew that there was something GENUINELY tragic about his situation, and he identified and performed it with his usual deadly efficiency. And I think he really liked walking the stage on his naked feet. He really likes subtly stripping his characters of their makeshift dignity to get at the curious and brittle human stuff underneath. But he really DOESN’T CARE to collapse into a heap of misery and despair in the middle of a stage. (Maybe even pathetic roaring was the one thing he tried in “The Tempest” for the first time? Maybe that was why it felt pathetic – which was good! But I suppose it was meant this way …)

 I believe that Richard Armitage “enjoyed” the moment where John Proctor is just shitting himself with fear of death AS A PART of the tragic-hero-experience. There is no choice anyway where John Proctor is concerned. In this case it IS tragedy (or “opera”), and it’s “take it or leave it”. IF you decide to take it up at all you’d better do it a hundred and fifty percent right. Somehow I understand why this works best if you don’t completely know yet if you can do it. And it might be the part of the experience that might unexpectedly make you feel like wanting to “curl into a ball and cry” in the aftermath. But this is only appropriate if it is really such a big thing. It might be how you know that you have really done it. After all it was something that he had wanted to do for about twenty years, and which certainly had a lot to do with what kind of actor he wanted to be. Even with what kind of PERSON he wanted to be.

I think this actually gave me pause, and I considered for a moment if I could take it seriously. But of course, covert exhibitionist that I am, I always have. I think that most people who “use” fiction know about this, even though most contemporaries might be less exhibitionist and more circumspect about tragedy. (Maybe blood and bones even appear more honest nowadays, or less suspicious, than people’s dirty laundry. I often ask myself how we have become so prudish again. No wonder I sometimes go back to the nineties as a treat …) But basically tragedy is still what it always used to be: a PUBLIC PERFORMANCE of the most secret and horrible matter that we can imagine for ourselves. Which works when you are determined to go all the way with it. It has to happen “for real”, or else it will never happen. It is not the kind of stuff we just “find” in a book. Tragedy is one of the two primeval forms of THEATRE for a reason. And WHEN it happens, ideally, it will work on the audience IN THE SAME WAY. About which, I must admit, I was rather pissed off at first when it did.

When Simon Russell Beale did “it”, it was brief and unexpected, and I just loved it. But immediately afterwards I knew that there would be an aftermath. Maybe what I liked most about it was the EXACTNESS with which he hit a sore spot. One of many, I am sure, I didn’t even know was there. And it doesn’t even matter, by the way, if it was personal for HIM. We never know anyway, unless the actor chooses to tell us. But I think that KNOWING “Shakespeare” SO WELL already must mean that you know about these things. In my case, knowing “Shakespeare” still means to know that I know nothing – and I love it. Not least because of all the things I don’t yet know about MYSELF, and which might still come to light in a similar way.

It appears that I am about to come to the point, but it will still be delayed. There was another detour I took, already when we stood at the entrance of the underground and I began to put together what had happened. I was still dealing with the question why forgiveness and forgiving is supposed to be such a big thing. (“We” somehow know that it is without ever thinking about it.) No wonder why I had been unable to hit the point ON MY OWN: it is something I systematically blocked where my own life is concerned. I have developed my own technique of making a “clear life” which basically consists in throwing things out and never looking back. But these things change when we grow older, and, in a way, even though he was younger then, Shakespeare was older, in terms of getting on in life, than I am – and Simon Russell Beale is anyway. And they knew that this isn’t quite what a “clear life” means.

There is an art of throwing things out which I thought I had mastered, but before you throw something out you should take a look – especially if it is something valuable. In my case it was love I “threw out” at some point because I didn’t know what to “do” with it. And I will never know why I got a (second?) chance because I didn’t deserve it … But this threatens to become another detour. The one I made then was about something that had impressed me at the time, that is, only a few years ago, and which I had somehow stored away, already suspecting that I might use it. It was when I bought everything I could get on dvd of Richard Armitage and watched “Strike Back” (Season 1) which I was mostly bored with. Nonetheless I watched it two or three times, as I always do, mostly because I am not a “native” listener and have problems with watching and getting all the input at the same time.

I didn’t really dislike it either, mostly, I think, because it was kind of “rewarding” that there was for once something “for men” with some kind of human interest story in it, at least in the beginning. (I suppose there is a big part of me that likes “men stuff”, though it always comes with machine guns.) And the expectation that there might actually be something happening apart from fighting was met, I just had to wait out all the six episodes of the season (There were SIX! I just googled it. What the hell happened in episode 2-5, I am afraid I have no clue …) I suppose that at some point I got exhausted and gave up, even though I was still watching. But, watching the whole thing for the second time, I began to realize that it became quite entertaining towards the end. This was because, with Ewen Bremner, another actor entered the scene whom I always like when I see him, and who is trudging the minefields of Afghanistan together with John Porter, played by Richard Armitage. Of course the two men don’t like each other – which always makes for good entertainment. But I think the actors did. At least it appears as if they were having fun PLAYING together, which is so much more entertaining than shooting and glowering, at least where I am concerned. I really minded it when the character played by Ewen Bremner died, but, unfortunately, he was that kind of guy … (John Porter definitely wasn’t, he made it into season 2, but I’ll never know what became of him. I suspect I didn’t really like him after all.) - It was probably this phase of “relief” (from shooting and glowering) which enabled me to take the end of the season seriously and recognize that there was something fascinating and relevant happening. The series begins with a crucial mission going awry because of the character played by Andrew Lincoln (another actor I always like when I see him). He manages to lay the blame on John Porter whose career and private life are destroyed as a result. If I remember this correctly a tiny part of the series is about him finding out who is to blame for this, and “we” think that the “showdown”, if it comes, will be about revenge. But, when the two men finally meet in the middle of an Afghan desert, “we”, and the character played by Andrew Lincoln, and probably John Porter himself, are surprised that it turns out to be about FORGIVING. I suppose both actors were relieved and delighted about a great dramatic scene in the middle of all that shooting and played brilliantly together. I especially loved Richard Armitage showing HOW MUCH John Porter wants to forgive, how much he NEEDS to forgive. How desperate he is to leave this horrible position, in Shakespeare terms: how desperate he is for a “clear life”.

I liked this, of course, but I think I just put it away somewhere “safe” because I felt that it didn’t concern me. And I was probably right about this. The part about forgiving I worry about is not to offend anybody so that no need for forgiveness will ever arise. That might be called a clear life, but it might also be called a barren one. And of course it has to do with my pathological fear of this kind of thing, of ending up at the receiving end of forgiveness. But the other end I hadn’t even considered, though I understood what a “big thing” it is FOR THE PERSON WHO HAS TO PERFORM THE DIRE BUSINESS OF FORGIVING, seeing this played so truthfully. And when Simon Russell Beale startled me with his unexpected roaring I suppose this memory came back to me, as some kind of emotional bridge to what was happening right then on that stage, because I recalled it immediately afterwards. It was, after all, the kind of thing I absolutely refuse to acknowledge in my own life, but I had at least “experienced” it once understanding what was going on between these two people. I think this is something that happens all the time, unnoticed, when we are reading, and I loved to retrieve such a significant sample of it. Otherwise understanding might not have happened so fast, or I might STILL not have selected the act of forgiving as an issue worthy of going through all this trouble in “The Tempest”.

Nonetheless my understanding of the issue at stake went much deeper this time, and I think it was because of the other remarkable thing that Simon Russell Beale did with Prospero. I know I took a long road to come to this place but, in my opinion, it was important. I needed to make the point that Simon Russell Beale is an extraordinary actor as to the level of depth and exactness he reaches in creating original, “life-like” characters like Falstaff in “The Hollow Crown”, or his Home Secretary in “The Spooks” who is so much more than a politician. And this is of course what great actors always strife to do – to make these characters so special that they will stay with us. I may of course be completely mistaken, but I am rather certain that he INSISTED on not creating a stage character for Prospero but to “be” Prospero on that stage BECAUSE he understood that this would be the “truest” thing to do with this character. To bring him so close to himself as possible and, by this, to the audience. Because I think THIS, more than any other “perversity” of the play, is what makes “The Tempest” so special and absolutely stand out, and naturally invites a biographical approach. I am usually so dissatisfied with biographical arguments because they are random and inexact, and cannot be “proved”. And only what can be convincingly “proved” ON THE STAGE holds any explanatory value where drama is concerned. At least when the text is seen as this analytical “vortex” that requires a human being at the other end. And it is very seldom, and a very interesting case of “humbleness” and wisdom, that an actor finds himself so much involved in making us understand the PLAY, not mainly the character he is playing. It would even be the wrong thing to do in most cases, and there is a very special kind of irony here as well because Prospero in fact is the “director” of everything that happens in “The Tempest”, and Simon Russell Beale, seeing the necessity to actually cross THIS line, finds himself partly on the other side. And I don’t think that any of this is random, at the very least it is born from the endeavor to get the POSITION Prospero is in EXACTLY RIGHT. The way Simon Russell Beale got “The Tempest” to “work” in my eyes is proof that in this case Shakespeare used this character to express himself and his own position “directly” – which is something he usually never does. It has nothing to do with drawing direct biographical connections but he obviously used this play to reflect on his own situation, being close to abandoning the stage for a private life (which is of course the “real” reason why Ariel asks him if he loves him!) and thinking about getting things sorted. And this, as such, is not the least bit interesting because, seeing the play, this is what “we” already KNOW. The interesting part is how exactly Shakespeare analyzed this situation, and how this can be expressed on the stage, so that it might happen TO US as well. In this respect, director and actors did an extraordinary job throughout, but it fell on Simon Russell Beale as Prospero to “get through” to us and explain what the desire for a “clear life” is like, and how important it is, and how it CONCERNS US. To somehow make us feel how tough it is to get there, and how little we want it, and how much we NEED it. To make it a BIG STEP for US as well to understand why it is necessary to forgive these worthless thugs who don’t even display any desire for being forgiven! Prospero, setting out to teach THEM a lesson ends up understanding that he has to learn a lesson himself. A lesson about something he doesn’t even WANT to contemplate. It is deeply unpleasant and frustrating, but he DOES it, knowing that the really important thing is this CLEAR LIFE he envisions for himself.

I think THIS is the closest I ever came to understanding a play “completely”, to catching the “vortex” actually moving around the stuff that is in my head and life, all muddled and incomplete, so that, in the end, it emerged a great deal clearer. It probably doesn’t mean that there is already wrought any change as to my “real” life. But the question is: where does this real life begin, and where does it end? It is probably a great deal more difficult to answer than the question where the stage “ends”. But part of understanding and performing “The Tempest” is to catch and play with this invisible line which is nonetheless there – and which I have probably already stretched much beyond its limit. After all, it is “just” the stage, and where the stage is concerned this kind of analysis which “moves” the whole human being, not just our brains or our hearts but our LIVES, already is EVERYTHING.