A05: Stage Interpretations of Caliban's Character

• Macready (1838): In the pre-Victorian era, Caliban's lines were reduced/cut. Macready revolutionised the understanding of Caliban: 'The modern Caliban, victim of oppression, was born'
• (1980s) Caliban played in F.R. Benson: inspired by Darwinism, Benson (a method actor) spent hours watching monkeys at the zoo to prepare for the role.
• H. Beerbohm Tree (1904): Tree rearranged the ending so Caliban ended the play. Caliban creeps out of his cave as the Italians sail back, overcome with sorrow and solitude.
• Peter Brook (1968): Sycorax gives birth to Caliban onstage, Caliban rapes Miranda and attempts to sodomise Prospero and takes over the island.
• Johnathan Miller (1970): Both Ariel and Caliban are played by Caribbean actors. Ariel was an educated slave, while Caliban was an uneducated field slave. After the departure of the Europeans, Ariel picks up Prospero's broken staff and points is menacingly at Caliban
• Julie Taymor (2010): Caliban's otherness is emphasised by his white moon-shaped vitiligo patches and heterochromia.
• Declan Donnellan (2011): Caliban is in manacles and ropes from his neck to his feet, Miranda is comfortable to take her top off and was it bare-chested with Caliban watching. Miranda winks at Caliban flirtatiously as she boards the ship bound for Milan.
• Jeremy Herrin (2013): Caliban is covered in red soil to signify his 'thou earth' status.
• Gregory Doran (2017): Caliban is covered in boils and scars and has talons to emphasise his physical disfigurement.
• Declan Donnellan: Mud-caked Ferdinand undergoes a ritual cleansing at the hands of Prospero. Miranda bites and slaps Ferdinand on their first meeting, he unbuckles his belt and tries to rape her as she lies beneath him giggling. When Miranda and Ferdinand become sexually excited prospero douses them ith a bucket of water as if they were copulating dogs.
• Kenneth Branagh: IN the opening ceremony of the Olympics 2012, he appropriates Caliban's 'island' speech in poor taste, the privileged white male appropriates an indigenous character's speech.
• Wolfe (1995): There is sexual chemistry between Prospero (Patrick Stewart) and Ariel (Aunjanue Ellis), The colonised and coloniser
• Sam Mendes: The Masque took place in a life-size pop-up theatre, with the goddesses played as stiff-limbed painted Victorian mannequins. Three of the reapers turn out to be conspirators: Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo who remind Prospero that he has to deal with them also.
• George C. Woolfe (1995): Iris, Ceres and Juno were Brazilian stilt-walkers accompanied by dancers with puppets who moved and chanted to a calypso beat.
• Rupert Goold (2006): Set in the inhospitable Arctic tundra, the masque was a tribal ceremony involving the couple being blindfolded and assailed by chanting of local Inuits (bad taste, cultural appropriation)
• Gregory Doran (2017): The use of visuals (projections) was visually stunning, the projections changed with each topic being discussed. The use of opera singers and large, frivolous costumes made the scene visually stunning. In this version, Miranda leaves Ferdinand and sits with her dad, Prospero.