Giles Davies and Katrina Stevenson.
Those are the two chief reasons you should see Jobsite’s production of The Tempest, Shakespeare's story of revenge, love and magic.
As Caliban the island creature, Davies was brilliant. He had me believing he was some sort of Tarzan, raised on this off-the-coast-of-normal island, perhaps only by monkeys. His physical stature helps, too — he's all leg and I'm pretty sure he spent most of the show in one hell of a modified malasana. He offers a magnificent, colorful performance, and he's wholly inside the body, mind and spirit of Caliban.
Stevenson, too, delivers an impressive physical (and otherwise) performance as Ariel. She spends most of her time wrapped in silks above the simple raked stage (since Ariel was trapped in a tree before Prospero — played by Roxanne Fay — freed her, it makes sense that she's comfortable up there) and my God, Katrina, if you're reading this I want to sign up for your boot camp. I mean this wholly non-sexually: She has an amazing body and every inch of it is toned and nymph-like as she twists and twirls amongst the silks. As Ariel, she's a delight and as a physical performer, she makes you believe she's magical with what she gets her body to do.
So, yes, these are the bright spots in this production.
Part of the reason I didn't fall madly in love with Jobsite’s Tempest were my own expectations. I expect a lot from director (and Jobsite sherpa) David Jenkins, and from actors of the caliber of Roxanne Fay and Derrick Phillips. Shakespearean comedy has to be one of the hardest things for a troupe to pull off successfully, and Jobsite does a more-than-adequate job in this production. But on opening night, I couldn't get past a few roadblocks.
Shakespeare's beauty lies in his language. You don't need to understand every word to get the intent or appreciate the beauty. You do, however, have to be able to make out the words, and, on the night we went, we had a tough time with that.
Roxanne Fay was lovely, alternately compassionate and unforgiving, but I expected depths of emotion and rainbows of color I believe her more than capable of, and I didn't get that from her (though we did see more from her than we did many in the ensemble). The least tolerable part of the evening, one that shocked me in its fart-jokes-from-teenage-boy mentality, was Phillips’s performance as Trinculo. A talented actor, he not only did a Baldwin-worthy — yet inappropriate — Trump imitation, he felt moved to call out "shithole" during the Act II, scene ii butt-joke riff. I checked; the actual word "shithole" does not appear in Shakespeare's work.
A few performers did delight — Nicole Maahs (Sebastian), Ward Smith (Stephano) and Michael Mahoney (Gonzalo) did well with smaller parts. But there were other things, smaller things, that made the evening imperfect. The set was innovative (a raked circular stage with projections against a cloth backdrop), but the hapless shipwrecked cast sometimes seemed to stand on it in almost a straight line, perhaps the most boring bit of blocking imaginable.
Don’t get me wrong; I found much to love about the production, and if you adore Shakespeare, as I do, go see this show. Emily Belvo, who plays the daft Miranda, and DeQuan Mitchell, who plays her love interest Ferdinand, give us a pretty love story; I'd be remiss if I didn't thank them for that.
And if you go easy on the expectations, you’ll thank Jobsite for staging The Tempest.
Cathy Salustri is the arts + entertainment editor. Contact her here.
This article appears in Jan 18-25, 2018.