Review Roundup: What Did the Critics Think of Sigourney Weaver in THE TEMPEST?

The Jamie Lloyd Company presents The Tempest,  the first production in a season of Shakespeare in London’s iconic Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”

The legendary Sigourney Weaver makes her West End debut as Prospero in Shakespeare's story of revenge and forgiveness.

What did the critics think?

Photo Credit: Marc Brenner

Alexander Cohen, BroadwayWorld: Lloyd’s chuck-it-at-the-wall-and-see-what-works vision doesn’t help. The auteur’s trademark visual austerity strips the island of specifics, with piles of black ash flecked by glaring crepuscular light forming a planetary hellscape. If you squint, it could almost be a stage version of Dune with its slightly campy sci-fi costumes but especially when a pale-faced Caliban pops his bald head up from the gravel like a sandworm. 

Arifa Akbar, The Guardian: You might call it a space opera, for all its music and song. Or sci-fi Shakespeare, for its mix of poetry and next-level theatrical showmanship. The swirling black emptiness around the set looks fathomless, blasts of light bring tremendous visual drama, and sheer silken sheets spanning the length of the stage are used in simple but sensational ways. The production creates its own dark magic with large-scale grandeur.

Sarah Crompton, WhatsOnStage: No-one, apart from Selina Cadell who makes an honourable character of Gonzalo, one of the nobles of Milan that Prospero causes to be shipwrecked on the island, seems to have much idea about what they are saying. Weaver absolutely looks the part, commanding the stage with her charisma, brooding watchfully over the action, but she speaks in an unrelenting and perversely unrhythmic monotone.

Nick Curtis, The Standard: Lloyd’s production has an incantatory, dream-like quality. The cast wear headset mics and speak the verse with great clarity but little passion, their movements stylised and stiff: on the first of two press nights, Weaver lost her words a couple of times. An interesting thematic suggestion that Prospero’s island is a place of rebirth gets lost amid the sonorous intonation and tedious comic relief. For all its stark visual boldness, this is a curiously old-fashioned take.

Olivia Rook, London Theatre: Mason Alexander Park as the spirit Ariel brings an ethereal, otherworldly presence to the stage, descending from the sky dressed in a gold corset and feathered neckerchief. They veer between fearful servitude and biting anger, spitting out the demand to be given “my liberty” in a rich, husky voice, which also sings beautifully. Forbes Masson is grotesque as the slave Caliban, emerging from volcanic rubble head first, with black spittle running down his chin. When his full body is revealed, it is clad in a bondage style corset, while the rest is covered in dirty smudges. He snarls and thrusts, crawling through people’s legs in a show of his baseness, and cleaves to pretend lords Stephano (Jason Barnett) and Trinculo (Mathew Horne, both ridiculous though mildly entertaining).

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph: The stark, sad fact, however, is that Weaver fails to weave the requisite magic. In terms of both her visual and auditory contribution, there’s something missing. She hasn’t done Shakespeare on stage since the mid-80s and has perhaps since become too wedded to the screen’s demands for minimalism, though Lloyd has plainly constructed the interpretation round maximal physical restraint. Her performance could possibly achieve some close-up marvels on camera but here, in contrast to his recent offerings (Tom Holland’s Romeo included), he forgoes that option.

Clive Davis, The Times: While it’s good to see a VIP of Sigourney Weaver’s stature making her belated West End debut — the 75-year-old Hollywood actress is surely bringing in lots of people who haven’t bothered with iambic pentameters since they were at school — she turns in a strangely impersonal performance as Prospero, as if encountering the script for the first time. That all-around household helper, Alexa, could have breathed more life into the lines.

Andrzej Lukowski, TimeOut: Bagging the UK stage debut of movie icon Sigourney Weaver feels like a coup on paper, but maybe not so much in practice. She’s not embarrassingly bad or anything, but the role of exiled magician Prospero simply feels beyond her – this is a giant theatre, a tricky role, and she’s not done any Shakespeare since the ’80s. She’s not a good verse speaker, delivering everything in a sort of concerned mom monotone that fails to hold this big, weird play together. Having her on stage constantly – usually seated in a chair, observing the action – feels like a sop to her celebrity that isn’t really borne out by her ability.

Average Rating: 55.0%