In “The New York Tempest,” Akash Kumar takes Shakespeare’s emphasis on illusion, stagecraft, and control, and explores these themes in a modern setting. By casting the noblemen as film executives and the slaves as assistants, this play offers a subtle critique of the labor practices in the film industry. The final image reveals Prospero as a tragic character who cannot escape from the world he created. Kumar deftly transforms the audience’s relationship to the fourth wall in the final lines: while Shakespeare’s Prospero makes us aware of the play as a play by addressing the audience directly, Kumar’s Prospero makes us aware of the play as a play by demonstrating his own inability to distinguish between illusion and reality. Like Césaire, Kumar gives us a Prospero who cannot be freed from his own delusions. Read Kumar’s reflection here.

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.