Riddle me this: What two things have the absolute least in common with each other?

If you said New France and Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, not only do you have a very specific mind, but you’re also more wrong than you think. We learned this when we had the job of connecting both of those things. 

I was grouped with Taylor, Niklas, and Fraser to set Act II of the Tempest in New France. We were also given a specific part of New France- the settlement of Canada. This was difficult, as the Tempest isn’t really about settling a new country. However, we managed to connect them. 

Act II of the Tempest doesn’t feature any of the particularly major characters or major events. It starts with four men, who believe that they are the only survivors of a shipwreck, exploring what they think is a deserted island. Alonso, one of the men, is the king of Naples. Gonzalo is only referred to as his ‘honest old councillor.’ Sebastian is Alonso’s brother, and thinks he is first in line to the throne as they believe Ferdinand, Alonso’s son, is dead. Antonio is the Duke of Milan, and he stole his power from his brother, Prospero. Prospero is on the island and caused the storm,  but they do not know that. In the scene, Ariel, Prospero’s servant, makes Alonso and Gonzalo fall asleep. Antonio convinces Sebastian to help him kill Alonso and Gonzalo. They raise their swords, and right when they’re about to strike, Alonso and Gonzalo wake up. 

In the second scene of the Tempest, two other men, Stephano and Trinculo, plot with the servant of Prospero, Caliban. Stephano and Trinculo were also on the ship that was wrecked, and also think they are the only survivors. Caliban is the slave of Prospero, and he is plotting with Stephano and Trinculo to kill Prospero so they can take over the island. 

We were unsure about how to go about connecting these scenes to New France during the settlement of Canada. We decided to make a pyramid chart, showing every character’s importance. Then we sorted jobs in New France onto that chart. For example, Caliban was at the bottom of the chart, as a First Nations person. Alonso was at the top of the pyramid, as the king’s representative in New France. We also incorporated what their costumes would look like and who would play them into the chart. Funnily enough, Niklas played both Caliban and Alonso. 

It might sound like we’d figured the whole thing out, but there was one more twist – we weren’t acting out the play. We presented it in tableaux, or living pictures. We would narrate what we were doing for that scene, then form an image representing that scene using ourselves, our costumes, and the background image. 

The first parts of the tableaux we worked on were the background images. These were fairly simple, as Fraser found a great app called Sketchbook Motion, that would create looping videos of moving images. This meant we could have waves crashing and lightning flashing in the background. 

Next, we worked on narration. We decided that Taylor would narrate everything, but when we started adding more narration, I took on part of it. The narration was just to describe who everyone was and what they were doing in the scene. 

Next was costumes and continuity. To make sure people knew who was who when they watched different people play the same roles, characters would have the same costumes. This got fairly hectic, but it worked out in the end. 

However, I have to say my favourite part of this project was working in the lighting booth after my act was done. I got the opportunity to control the lights for Acts 3 and 4, and I enjoyed every second. It wasn’t as stressful, cramped, or hectic as backstage. It was calm, and it was teamwork. We worked together to pull up the lights and backgrounds at the same time. We worked together to work out if the narrators were onstage or not through the dark. Even though it took a lot more work than just staying backstage did, it was way more enjoyable. 

Here’s the video of our performance!

I really enjoyed this project, and I hope we can do more like it in the future.