Wade Li’s “Just Another Tempest” uses a light touch to interpret The Tempest. In some places, the alterations (beyond the modernized language) are so subtle as to be nearly imperceptible. But Li’s decision to update the language in itself directs the reader’s attention to the importance of language generally in the play and in his interpretation. Li has Ariel speak entirely in the active voice, which shifts his relationship both to Prospero and to the way he carries out Prospero’s orders: he becomes visibly (or audibly) complicit in Prospero’s machinations. Caliban, on the other hand, uses language as a tool of resistance — as when he mutters over his shoulder, “Elohssa ko.” While Li leaves the symbolism of Caliban’s backward-speaking “native language” up for interpretation, it suggests the way “developed” nations treat “developing” nations as “backward,” while leaving open the possibility that Caliban’s language might have the power to undo or reverse the violence done by Prospero’s language.

In this painting, Salma Abouhasswa, Saad Khakwani, Aimen Khan, and Davinder Singh visually portray a scene from a reimagined version of The Tempest. The group draws on the work of with Rodó, Retamar, and Césaire—three interpretations of The Tempest that re- center the marginal and marginalized characters in Shakespeare’s play—in order to show, as Abouhasswa put it, “the power dynamics between characters that have little to no power over the people above them.” The painting focuses on Alonso, Gonzalo, Caliban, Ferdinand, and Miranda, giving each of these characters a new constellation of motives and providing an opportunity to interrogate the nature of the power dynamics in The Tempest and what forces uphold them—whether it’s the individual personalities or an ingrained social system of arbitrary hierarchies. The painting itself, as Khakwani points out, uses perspective, distance, relative size, and eye contact to indicate the power dynamics outlined in the artists’ reflections.

By using a song as a medium to interpret The Tempest, Naveen Singh’s “Thought of You” highlights the importance of treating the play as a performance. The lyrics read as a plaintive monologue that allows Caliban the opportunity to express himself more fully. Through song, Singh reveal aspects of Caliban’s psyche that are not immediately apparent in other interpretations. While there are elements of Césaire’s Caliban in the line, “Boy you know I’ve got freedom…You can’t do shit cuz now I’m free,” Singh’s Caliban expresses a complex relationship to both Prospero and to his freedom. By choosing a love song to express hate, Singh draws our attention to the obsessively intimate focus of both emotions. The relationship between Caliban and Prospero comes to resemble that between spouses in an abusive relationship; this song offers not only a new interpretation of The Tempest, but also a cutting commentary on the violent love glorified in some contemporary pop music.

Watch the live performance here.

In “The Tempest and Colonialism,” Ariel Rafaelov reveals how Aimée Césaire interprets The Tempest in order to illuminate and challenge the colonialist and racist undertones of Shakespeare’s play. Rafaelov addresses the power dynamics of the island as a microcosm of colonialism and European land- grabs (an ironic parallel to the power grab in Naples that led to Prospero’s exile to the island). He also highlights the importance of language in The Tempest and in Caliban’s resistance in A Tempest.

Gabriela Chrysostomou’s essay “The 4th Wall in The Tempest(s)” effectively demonstrates how both Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Césaire’s A Tempest purposefully break the fourth wall in order to engage the audience and blur the lines between fiction and reality. She uses Bertolt Brecht introduce the larger theoretical issues involved in breaking the fourth wall—for Brecht, theater that calls attention to itself as theater forces audiences to recognize the extent to which reality, too, requires a willing suspension of disbelief. Brecht believed that theater could be used to inspire revolutionary action by making audiences recognize that other worlds are possible. A Brechtian reading allows us to understand how both Shakespeare and Césaire blur the boundaries between theater and reality; but as Chrysostomou argues, the two playwrights do so with different aims. Read Chrysostomou’s reflection here.

Sharee Campbell uses familiar visual symbols to depict the power dynamics in The Tempest. The chess pieces can be readily understood as depicting the characters as “pawns” in a power struggle, while the chess board can be seen as representing the stage of action. By attaching a ball and chain to both a pawn—a symbol of powerlessness—and the queen—a symbol of power —she demonstrates, like Césaire, the way that the system of colonialism ensnares both colonizer and colonized. The disembodied hands that seem to emanate from the island itself, and the crown that perches atop a volcano rising from the sand, force us to question who is actually “pulling the strings,” so to speak. While Campbell’s reflection interprets the red threads connecting the characters as the “thread of life,” it can also be interpreted as the strings controlling puppets, and it bears a striking visual similarity to the thread one might tie around a finger as a memory aid, perhaps symbolic of how Prospero’s memories of his lost kingdom tie him to an ongoing power struggle. Read Campbell’s reflection here.