The storm

In rough seas, the ship of Alonso, King of Naples, sinks. He manages to save himself, along with his son Ferdinand, the Duke of Milan, Antonio, and other shipwrecked survivors, by reaching a nearby island. What the castaways do not realize is that this island is ruled by Prospero. Following a plot by his brother Antonio, which had cost him his rule in Milan, he had ended up there twelve years earlier together with his daughter Miranda. Prospero, who is skilled in magic, has subjugated the island’s native inhabitants, including the air spirit Ariel and Caliban, whom he regards as a savage. With their help, he staged the shipwreck that has now washed the noble travelers into his realm of power. Is he seeking revenge, or reconciliation? Or does he simply want to assert his rights? Meanwhile, the island spirits he has subjugated use the new situation to play their own games amidst the intrigues of the powerful. When Miranda and Ferdinand then fall madly in love with one another, the tide turns once more.

As one of Shakespeare’s final works, first performed in 1611, the play is considered one of the most ambiguous due to the diverse genres it combines. Appropriation and emerging colonialism play just as significant a role in this poetic fairy tale as the shift in power and the concept of creation. The island, as a laboratory of possibilities, poses the question, as an exceptional situation, of how one would handle unlimited power.