Caliban by the Yellow Sands

Last updated
Caliban by the Yellow Sands
Caliban by the Yellow Sands title page.png
Author Percy MacKaye
Published1916

Caliban by the Yellow Sands is a play by Percy MacKaye, published in 1916.

Contents

Production information

Poster for Caliban at Harvard Stadium June 28 to July 9 [1917]. Houghton MS Thr 412 Caliban Harvard Stadium 1917.jpg
Poster for Caliban at Harvard Stadium June 28 to July 9 [1917].

MacKaye devised this piece in celebration for the 300th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.

Background

MacKaye's first technical opportunity to experiment in devising a dramatic structure of Caliban's requirements was in St. Louis in 1914. [1] Seven thousand citizens took part in MacKaye's civic masque, a historical pageant celebrating the 150th anniversary of the city's founding. [2]

New York production (1916)

After the civic masque in St Louis, MacKaye began to look to Central Park for an appropriate site to produce the community festival. The idea was to now have his Masque as the central popular piece in the festival, along with the hundreds of other Shakespearean celebrations. However, there were far too many people who opposed this idea of using Central Park and did not think that it was an appropriate setting for the production. This debate ended in the disapproval of the use of Central Park, which MacKaye was very disappointed about. He strongly believed that the ones who were against the idea were simply unaware of the impact and significance the initial production had on the citizens of St. Louis, and the potential affect it could have on the citizens of New York City. He finally received approval to produce the play in New York two years later, at the Lewisohn Stadium. The New York production had an audience of 20,000 a night, with 2,000-3,000 people actually performing. Although still high in number, MacKaye desired more of what had been produced in St. Louis and longed to grow the piece in New York just as rapidly. The total audience of 135,000 covered the costs of around $100,000. However attempts to turn the enthusiasm for the production by having an annual event came to nothing with the US entry into the First World War. [2] MacKaye's desire to expand the Masque was rooted in his vision for mankind, upon which the play as a whole was based. Thus the piece was promoted as a "Community Masque".

Boston production (1917)

Lionel Braham in the role of Caliban Lionel Braham as Caliban.png
Lionel Braham in the role of Caliban

The Community Masque was re-staged in Boston's Harvard Stadium in July 1917. The promoters published Caliban News to try to maintain the staging of the masque as an ongoing event for the summer. They depicted this as a patriotic activity embodying the Spirit of 1917. [3]

Play information

The play is loosely based on Shakespeare's play The Tempest , and centers on the character Caliban, the monster son of Sycorax, and his desire for knowledge. The passage taken from The Tempest, which is the inspiration for the masque, is when Prospero says,

It was mine art
When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape
The pine and let thee out. (I.i.)

The character of Caliban is meant to represent the "passionate child-curious part of us all": Caliban is depicted as a much more primitive character than Prospero or Ariel, in his pursuit of the art of Prospero. These are not meant to be direct characters from Shakespeare's play but rather symbolic representations of what these characters mean in the context of his play. MacKaye was less worried about telling the journey of these characters in a story rather than present to the audience a piece of poetry meant to resonate with them on a deeper level. The play is constructed in a way which includes scenes concerning Caliban's story as well as anachronistic vignette-like scenes which take place in a separate performance area. A scene could occur between Caliban and Miranda and then immediately switch to a scene between Brutus and Lucius.

Play's literature

The language used by MacKaye is only one of many elements in the work meant to cultivate the idea he is trying to present. "If no word of the Masque be heard by the audience, the plot, action, and symbolism will still remain understandable". The symbolic structure to include pageantry, poetry, and dance in one play is MacKaye's attempt at forming a new genre of theatre meant to affect the masses of people who saw his performances. In his first production of Caliban by the Yellow Sands in St. Louis, his emphasis was on making all the elements of the theatre work synchronously. No single aspect of the Masque was meant to overpower another. The technical would work with the artistic and even the different artistic styles, which included elements of opera, song, dance, and various other performance styles, worked in one cohesive unit. While spectacle was a large part of the production, the poetry and literature were equally as important. Mackaye worked with a number of activists from New York's various linguistic communities; the socialist labor leader and poet Arturo Giovannitti translated the play into Italian. [1]

MacKaye's ideology

Caliban was meant to bring together a community not just civically but also intellectually. Mackaye's theoretical views could be seen in his concept of "Civic Theatre" which outlined before Caliban by the Yellow Sands was conceived. MacKaye's Civic Theater was one which, "resembles the harmonious mind of a man whose splendid passions and imaginations are controlled and directed by his enlightened reason to the service of his race". His conception of theatre was not commercial but rather an artistic aspiration to enhance public morality. Caliban achieves this thought in the sense of the story MacKaye tries to tell. He presents the journey of mankind and its quest for art. It is a simple enough idea with many implications and interpretations making the audience a necessity. With an audience numbering in the hundreds of thousands, the conversations stirring around Caliban by the Yellow Sands would lead to debate, agreement, and mass intelligent thought accomplishing his goal of unifying a community.

Critical commentary

Thomas Cartelli has characterised MacKaye's depiction of the struggle between Prospero and Caliban as being reductively displayed as a manichean struggle between dark and light. He suggests that the scenes interposed from other works of Shakespeare are those least linked to social and political issues, rather focusing on unproblematic scenes from the romantic tragedies and festive comedies. The "Community Masque" places MacKaye in the position which he dramatises as that of Prospero/Shakespeare, who uses the theatre to uplift Caliban from the material world of Setebos. Cartelli discusses the implications this has in the context of Jewish immigration to New York and suggests that Mackaye is asserting the values of White Anglo-Saxon Protestantism in a way comparable to Senator Albert Beveridge's concerns raised at the turn of the century. Cartelli thus considers MacKaye's work as an example of neocolonialism, which asserts Shakespeare as providing the peak experience of western civilisation. [4]

Florence Ripley Mastin wrote a poem after Caliban by the Yellow Sands: [5]

The audience itself is Caliban!

Monstrous and murmuring beneath the stars

It sees slim Beauty pass, and Poetry!

And hears the thrilling voice of Song.

So croutched.

Profoundly moved yet inarticulate....

Florence Ripley Mastin, Caliban in the Stadium

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prospero</span> Character in William Shakespeares The Tempest

Prospero is a fictional character and the protagonist of William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, whose usurping brother, Antonio, had put him to sea on a "rotten carcass" of a boat to die, twelve years before the play begins. Prospero and Miranda had survived and found exile on a small island. He has learned sorcery from books, and uses it while on the island to protect Miranda and control the other characters.

Caliban, son of the witch Sycorax, is an important character in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Percy MacKaye</span> American poet

Percy MacKaye (1875–1956) was an American dramatist and poet.

Miranda (<i>The Tempest</i>) Character in The Tempest

Miranda is one of the principal characters of William Shakespeare's The Tempest. She is the only female character to appear on stage.

<i>Prosperos Books</i> 1991 British film by Peter Greenaway

Prospero's Books is a 1991 British avant-garde film adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, written and directed by Peter Greenaway. Sir John Gielgud plays Prospero, the protagonist who provides the off-screen narration and the voices to the other story characters. As noted by Peter Conrad in The New York Times on 17 November 1991, Greenaway intended the film “as an homage to the actor and to his 'mastery of illusion.' In the film, Prospero is Shakespeare, and having rehearsed the action inside his head, speaking the lines of all the other characters, he concludes the film by sitting down to write The Tempest.”

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Farwell</span> American composer (1872–1952)

Arthur Farwell was an American composer, conductor, educationalist, lithographer, esoteric savant, and music publisher. Interested in American Indian music, he became associated with the Indianist movement and founded the Wa-Wan Press to publish music in this genre. He combined teaching, composing and conducting in his career, working on both coasts and in Michigan.

The Tempest is an opera by English composer Thomas Adès with a libretto in English by Meredith Oakes based on the play The Tempest by William Shakespeare.

<i>The Tempest</i> (1979 film) 1979 British drama film

The Tempest is a 1979 film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same name. Directed by Derek Jarman, produced by Don Boyd, with Heathcote Williams as Prospero, it also stars Toyah Willcox, Jack Birkett, Karl Johnson and Helen Wellington-Lloyd from Jarman's previous feature, Jubilee (1977).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sycorax</span> Character in Shakespeares The Tempest

Sycorax is an unseen character in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest (1611). She is a vicious and powerful witch and the mother of Caliban, one of the few native inhabitants of the island on which Prospero, the hero of the play, is stranded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George John Bennett</span> British actor (1800–1879)

George John Bennett (1800–1879) was for nearly 40 years a Shakespearian actor on the London stage, notably Covent Garden and Drury Lane.

Stephano (<i>The Tempest</i>) Character in The Tempest

Stephano is a boisterous and often drunk butler of King Alonso in William Shakespeare's play, The Tempest. He, Trinculo and Caliban plot against Prospero, the ruler of the island on which the play is set and the former Duke of Milan in Shakespeare's fictional universe. In the play, he wants to take over the island and marry Prospero's daughter, Miranda. Caliban believes Stephano to be a god because he gave him wine to drink which Caliban believes healed him.

Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs is a 1991 opera by Michael Nyman that began as an opera-ballet titled La Princesse de Milan choreographed by Karine Saporta. The libretto is William Shakespeare's The Tempest, as abridged by the composer. The title is derived from Caliban's line, "This isle is full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs, which give delight and hurt not." It premiered in June 1991 in Hérouville-Saint-Clair, Calvados, France, with the L'Ensemble de Basse-Normandie conducted by Dominique Debart. Three members of Saporta's dance company provided the singing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Koemmenich</span>

Louis Koemmenich was an American composer and conductor who died by suicide in 1922.

Ariel (<i>The Tempest</i>) Character in The Tempest

Ariel is a spirit who appears in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Ariel is bound to serve the magician Prospero, who rescued him from the tree in which he was imprisoned by Sycorax, the witch who previously inhabited the island. Prospero greets disobedience with a reminder that he saved Ariel from Sycorax's spells, and with promises to grant Ariel his freedom. Ariel is Prospero's eyes and ears throughout the play, using his magical abilities to cause the tempest in Act One which gives the play its name, and to foil other characters' plots to bring down their master.

<i>The Tempest</i> Play by William Shakespeare

The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that he wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, the rest of the story is set on a remote island, where Prospero, a wizard, lives with his daughter Miranda, and his two servants: Caliban, a savage monster figure, and Ariel, an airy spirit. The play contains music and songs that evoke the spirit of enchantment on the island. It explores many themes, including magic, betrayal, revenge, and family. In Act IV, a wedding masque serves as a play-within-a-play, and contributes spectacle, allegory, and elevated language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Play (theatre)</span> Dramatic literary form

A play is a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between characters and is intended for theatrical performance rather than mere reading. The creator of a play is known as a playwright.

<i>The Tempest</i> (1963 film) 1963 Australian TV series or program

The Tempest is an Australian television play, an adaptation of the play by William Shakespeare. Directed by Alan Burke, it stars Reg Livermore. The play aired on 16 October 1963 in Sydney.

Lionel Braham was a British actor. He appeared in the films Snow White, Young Lochinvar, I'll Show You the Town, Skinner's Dress Suit, Don Juan, As You Like It, Personal Property, The Prince and the Pauper, Wee Willie Winkie, Lord Jeff, A Christmas Carol, The Little Princess, I Dood It, The Song of Bernadette and Macbeth, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spirit of 1917</span>

The Spirit of 1917 was the alleged jubilation in the United States after entering World War I. It involved nostalgia for the feelings of the Spirit of '76.

<i>The Tempest</i> (1908 film) 1908 British film

The Tempest is a 1908 British-made silent film directed by film pioneer Percy Stow who specialised in trick photography.

References

  1. 1 2 Mackaye, Percy (1916). Caliban by the Yellow Sands. New York: Doubleday Page & Co. pp.  153.
  2. 1 2 Shattuck, Charles Harlen (1987). Shakespeare on the American Stage: From Booth and Barrett to Sothern and Marlowe . London: Associated University Presses. ISBN   9780918016775.
  3. Cullen, E. Frederick (1917-07-09). "An Inspiration Says Mr. Cullen". No. 1. Caliban Committee of Greater Boston. Caliban News. OCLC   235977654.
  4. Cartelli, Thomas (2013). Repositioning Shakespeare: National Formations, Postcolonial Appropriations. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN   9781134647323.
  5. Kahn, Coppélia (2000). "Caliban at the Stadium: Shakespeare and the Making of Americans". The Massachusetts Review. 41 (2): 256–284. JSTOR   25091664.