Here is the Our Revels Are Now Ended speech from The Tempest by Shakespeare---a (poor) audio from the 1974 Tempest by Paul Scofield - a dreamy, deep, simmering under the surface one- Listen to the way he says “dreams” ---

and then Simon Russel Beale, from RSC’s Tempest from- 2013?  It is total disappointment, the angry, weary confession of atheist/New Man – there is a dreamy Spirit scene before it, very beautiful.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

 

William Shakespeare, From The Tempest, Act 4 Scene 1

As much as I love Scofield, there is perhaps better ground for the Beale Russel/Greg Doran interpretation. At least, I felt I understood the play better.

I have seen this play at The Finnish National Theatre with Esko Salminen as Prospero. He duly milked the romance from this text – it was a coherent performance tilted towards The Heroic Magical tale. Instead of an existential, odd, philosophical one.

This play is so clearly related to The Midsummer Nights Dream – I am hoping one day to see a performance of The Dream Fairies as earth-like as Caliban. Peter Brook made The Tempest before the 1970 Dream – so it was a journey to travel and unleash new meanings from the text.

Lastly, just some fangirling pics. Vanessa Redgrave and Scofiled, and Paul laughing---