Why This Play?:

I wanted to start the year off with a romance play.  There’s something about the dark days and sparkle of the Christmas season that bring me to mind of the literal magic in Shakespeare’s late works.  Both the time of year and the romances can be dark and foreboding while still somehow optimistic and breathtakingly beautiful.  These are the plays that manage to be everything at once, especially The Tempest.  We have here a story of revenge and forgiveness, of magic and mayhem, romance, murder plots, freedom, and some pretty fun comedy.  It’s a tall order, and old Bill delivers.

This play makes me drift back to the part of my childhood that feels like a vivid dream: the year my family lived in Barbados.  Yes, you heard me right.  In reflecting back on my own family’s island time, I had all kinds of swirly thoughts running through my head.  I wondered how if no man is an island, then why do we insist on sometimes acting as if we are?