I watched it a bit ago, and it all moves very fast, but one of my biggest questions about it is actually The Caliban Question. The only non-white person on the cast that I can see on a first viewing is playing Caliban. This makes me wonder where they’re going with Caliban – the colonialism-critique angle’s been done so many times that even if they’re not going there, they surely must expect someone to notice the casting decisions and wonder if they’re going for it.

They’ve done some stuff with the make-up for Caliban that seems to be making quite an assertively “yes, we are self-aware about these questions” statement, though – his face on the poster is half white, with one blue eye. Which may well be intended to serve as a useful constant reminder that Caliban as a character is wholly a white creation of the “other” through white eyes (not that I should be getting in this deep from a TRAILER ALONE, but whatevs). And it looks a bit like they’re definitely trying to signal that they’ve been ruminating on these Caliban Casting Questions, which inevitably come up with the Tempest given its themes and performance history.

Julie Taymor also has a respectable track record with sensitive treatments of race issues on stage and screen as far as I’m aware – she took Disney’s Lion King and sent it through a prism of traditional African storytelling and design, with a predominantly black cast and choir, and beautiful use of textiles in the set designs.

So basically I’m very interested to see how they tackle this play, which is complex beast, even by Shakespeare’s standards.

I really hope Miranda has some force (it’s personal, haha). You can play her pretty fierce and depth-ful – she lives on an island covered in spirits! she’s a shaman’s daughter! – but so many productions I’ve seen had her princessed up to the nines.

More images here: http://twitchfilm.net/news/2010/09/venice-2010-fresh-images-from-julie-taymors-the-tempest.php

OH MY GOD WHAT A LONG COMMENT. I don’t know how that even happened.