Colombo Critic.com

Caliban’s Rebellion is a dramatic adaptation of a work of Shakespeare in typical CenterStage Productions’ style. Drawing on The Tempest for inspiration Caliban’s Rebellion attempts to paint Caliban in a more forgiving light and give a slightly different view from the traditional interpretation. So, you may be wondering… is it any good?

That depends…

In the beginning…

…was the fool. And his friend the twit. In an refreshing change from “fairies” of the past this production has instead gone with the mentally challenged for laughs. And, thankfully, there are laughs… and not all of them cheap. Vishvamithra Ahangama gives a great performance as Trinculo, the court jester and Shehan Wijemanne does a decent job as Stefano, the butler and Trinculo’s partner in the ludicrous. This comedic duo becomes a trio later on in the performance when Caliban (Amesh De Silva) himself joins in the fun. The introduction is fun, fresh and after the obligatory Sacrifice of the Obnoxious and Inconsiderate Audience Member (by tickles and rabid dogs no less) the performance moves on to the initial bout of exposition. And then the tempest, which was surreal and wonderful with overtones of something I’d expect from Cirque du Soleil.

And then…

…things kinda bog down a little… which brings me to my first and major problem with this production. While not advertised as a musical this production does contain a lot of singing and some live music and unfortunately a lot of it isn’t really that good. A fair amount of the dance and musical sequences feel tacked on and superfluous, like they were added because they were expected or because nothing better could be found. The quality of the dance sequences varied from excellent to “Oh My God! We’re like… so drunk, dude!” with the latter often accompanied by a spontaneously planned conga line. Apart from reinforcing the production’s “Afro-Caribbean” flavor a lot of these sequences don’t really add much to the performance and some of them drag on to the point of frustration.

My other minor gripe was that there were very minor omissions in props, lighting and sound that would have made a huge impact on the atmosphere of the performance. The Jester could have used more (and louder) bells. There’s just a sense that he should jingle madly while he prances around on stage and it’s almost disappointing that he doesn’t. Then there’s the fact that Prospero’s whip is silent. The flagellation of Caliban would have been much more effective if the crack of the whip echoed off the stage. There were about a dozen of small discrepancies like this throughout the play that made it just a little less atmospheric.

The Acting

The acting ranged from good to excellent. Not quite up there with the best I’ve seen but good enough that I enjoyed the production. The accents stayed reasonably stable throughout the night and were usually understandable. Of particular note was Caliban’s accent which, on occasion, strayed from a moderately Jamaican rant to a more traditional Scottish brogue in a spectacular demonstration of incomprehensibility. Thankfully, actually needing to understand what he was saying wasn’t quite required so things worked out anyway.

In Conclusion

This production was big, flashy and energetic. It was also way over-the-top (as was to be expected anyway), moderately befuddling and just a few steps short of complete. Overall I liked this production more than the last one, but I still feel that there’s a few pacing issues that need to be sorted out before they can really shine.