Joan Marcus
Just as Prospero bids farewell to his powers at the end of The Tempest, so this production of Shakespeare’s play (showing to Sunday) brings the curtain down, temporarily, on Shakespeare in the Park. The Delacorte Theater is being renovated, and will resume productions again in 2025 (some early pleas: keep the frosé, but do something about New York’s most ass-numbing seats).
To say farewell, appositely this is a Public Works production—with music and lyrics by Benjamin Velez, choreography by Tiffany Rea-Fisher, and directed by Public Works chief Laurie Woolery—which in heartfelt intent is all that theater should be in a city. The performers combine professionals and community members. The tickets are free for all. As night falls, the enchantment of the text melds with the physical surroundings. The stage is filled with a cross-section of the city in dance and song.
The preservation of this theater-going experience is vital, but do not attend this au revoir expecting a conventional Tempest. This is rather Tempest-lite; a bright and peppy 90-minutes with some Shakespearean text and depth left intact, but not much—and instead almost an anti-inclination to dig for it, or the deeper, darker currents of the text.