Dramaturgy in Shakesperes The Tempest

Essay by zombat00High School, 12th gradeA-, February 2005

download word file, 2 pages 3.0

Dramaturgy: Scripts, props, staging, rehearsals, actors, directors, writers, musicians, stage managers, audiences and performances combined to create the dramaturgical impression of value, need, and agency.

William Shakespeare's "The Tempest" Dream and harsh reality, magic and reason, unyielding power and revenge on the one hand and forgiveness on the other, co-exist in this symbolic tale, this masterly "swansong" of Shakespearean dramaturgy. The central character is Prospero, the duke of Milan, who finds himself exiled on a desert island with his daughter, Miranda, when his brother conspires against him. Twelve years later, fate will deal him a good... The performances begin on January 21 and last till April 24.

Shakespeare serves as a turning point in the history of theatre; his plays were thinly disguised critiques of feudalism with its murders and abuses of power by the nobility; and with its celebrations of moderation [The Tempest hurled contempt on pre-modern god concepts in the characters of Caliban, a brutish half human and Sycorax, a primitive god concept] while he gave praise for reason and wisdom which was the center piece of the Enlightenment.

His plays did not serve to reproduce the society in which they were located but rather to critique and transform them to a new and, presumably, more democratic social life world that was emerging out of the findings. The Tempest, Shakespeare's last play, written in 1611, took place on an island. But modern uses of dramaturgy often consolidate political and economic power as much as critique it.

The technology of the theatre also serves well to create the dramaturgical products with which both market demand and ideological control created. Enclosed within the information needs of industrial and finance capital, dramaturgy is combined with communications of technology within this play.

The Tempest had deep roots in...