king lear and the tempest by william shakespeare

Fun Fact: The Tempest is thought to be one of the last plays Shakespeare wrote on his own.Characters: Prospero, Miranda, Ariel, Caliban, Ferdinand, Gonzalo, Antonio.Themes: Authority and betrayal, illusion, otherness, and nature.'So, the play kind of explains why you get a storm effect and then a bad smell.'Īccording to Stern, Shakespeare would sometimes include big, metaphorical, meaningful storms into his plays for a very good theater effect. 'For instance, in 'Cymbeline,' Jove ‘came in thunder his breath was sulphurous to smell,’ what's actually happening is that the little fireworks, they smell like sulfur after they've gone off,' Stern said. Shakespeare anticipated these special effects and sometimes worked them into his plays.

The rolling cannonball would create a rumbling sound akin to that of thunder.įor a more spectacular storm effect, Stern said, fireworks would be thrown onstage to create a bang for larger thunder and a flash for lightning. 'One answer is that you could do them in a theater in a way that it was hard to do sunshine when one didn't have lighting effects but there were special effects to make storms.'Īccording to Stern, the sound of thunder was created by rolling a cannonball down a wooden channel with a slope. 'We sometimes wonder why there are so many storms and bad weather in Shakespeare's plays,' Stern said.

Off the page, weather in Shakespeare’s works required creative special effects when the plays were performed onstage. Shakespeare's plays were often performed in open-air theaters, such as the Globe Theatre in London. 'He is humbled and, by the weather, given vitality and energy through it because he's not at war with it, and it can storm if it likes.' Weather on the stage Weather hasn't been bad the way his daughters have.'Īccording to Stern, King Lear works out not only who he should be angry with, but also how small he is in the universe. 'What he works out, as he shouts, is that he can't control weather - weather can do what it likes. 'But actually, it's a very interesting speech because he's not angry with the storm. 'He's now an old man in a storm, and he rages, 'Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!' and he shouts at the storm,' she said. In one particular scene, the king had given away everything to his daughters, who had mistreated him. One of the most famous weather effects in Shakespearean plays is in 'King Lear,' according to Stern. Waves crash upon the shore as King Lear stands defiantly in a storm.

King lear and the tempest by william shakespeare