Letter to the editor

I went to see Linfield’s production of The Tempest on November 12, 2015.

Although I have watched other productions of The Tempest before, I had never seen a production with such an innovative environmental setting, or Ariel cast as a split gendered character.

I was in particular drawn to Antoine Johnson as Caliban the slave, the only Black character in the play. While Antoine playing the role of Caliban felt like a marginal character, he did everything that he could to invoke in others and me layered emotions of pity, sorrow, helplessness, horror and anger.

While The Tempest as a play is deeply problematic from a postcolonial context – a context within which anyone with my academic training reads such a master/slave and colonial/colonized relationship between Prospero and Caliban, I could not help but ask myself, why in 2015 Caliban was represented in such a dehumanized fashion?

Given the charged conversations surrounding race and racism (structural and institutional) both in our country and within many college campuses, why was Caliban’s character not deconstructed enough to allow him more agency?

While Prospero’s redemption at the end as portrayed in his symbolic bowing down to Caliban stems from his understanding of the horrible treatment he may have bestowed on Caliban, yet the ending left me feeling rather unresolved. The end somehow did not justify the means.

If imaginations could’ve been extended to the construction of an innovative stage setting consisting of trash on the island (although I am still not quite clear as to what such “trash” or who such “trash” represented in a colonial context), and also a reframing of sexuality, why couldn’t Linfield’s production reimagine the contours of race and oppression?

Why couldn’t Caliban be represented as a more empowered or a humane slave?

I certainly expected the director to be aware of how such a demeaning representation of a slave played by the only Black actor on stage (and a still quite predominantly White campus and State) could be perceived by most students and faculty of color, and others who are sensitive to representations of race in our culture.

In Linfield’s production, Caliban appeared to be quite dehumanized, an incarcerated figure showing his bare black body in his orange pants and in chains, a figure representing a modern day Black prisoner.

Caliban is also drunk (for the most part), heavily accented and lacking any agency as a Black slave.

While Caliban’s body is by no means sexualized, Ferdinand (Miranda’s White lover) is fully sexualized wearing a white suit, and then dropping off his coat to exhibit his bare and desirable body.

While these representations mimic the racial double standards imposed on who or what is “sexy and beautiful,” they also reinforce these ideologies of desire within the confines of racial politics.

The production had already shifted from being “faithful” to the original text by altering the setting and other characters to represent more progressive ideologies of sexuality and sustainability within Linfield’s production of The Tempest. Yet, Caliban remained in a regressive era.

When an African American student came to me and said “Wow, I wonder what Black students would make of Caliban given that he is the only Black character in the play?” I asked the student, “What did you think?” The student responded: “It was deeply disturbing and humiliating.” Since seeing the play I’ve been approached by other minority and White students who are also quite disturbed by Caliban’s dehumanized representation in Linfield’s production.

These comment from students have deeply saddened me because there may be other students like these students who have been psychologically impacted by this play.

We have missed yet another opportunity to launch a conversation about race and power, a much-needed conversation both within our classrooms and within our college.

While I understand that the play’s innovative stage designing catered to this year’s PLACE programming, but to miss the most problematic aspect of racial representation in The Tempest is not just a gloss over, but a inexcusable shortcoming of both its meaning and its broader implications of race and racism both its historic and contemporary context.

There were three discussions that were launched about the play (“What is Dump,” “Talk Dirty to Me,” and “Sex, Magic and Illusion: The World of The Tempest”) yet there was not a single discussion about “race” within the context of The Tempest.

Interestingly enough there are quite a few faculty and students on this campus who could have joined a conversation regarding race and its powerful impact on one’s identity, culture history and politics (both within the play and in our contemporary times) if such an opportunity was made available.

If a play can invoke and provoke a variety of strong responses about the construction of one’s identity, then this is precisely the moment we ought to seize and have these conversations, both easy and difficult.

Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt is an associate professor of English and coordinator of the gender studies program at Linfield College.