(Lyn Gardner’s article appeared in the Guardian, 10/31.)
“The isle is full of noises,” says Caliban, and it certainly is in Flute Theatre’s groundbreaking version of the play, created for children and young people with autism and their families.
That noise is often laughter as the cast and audience create the story together sharing the same space – a circle on the floor with a splash of blue to suggest the sea and a patch of yellow to evoke sand.
It’s a unique theatrical experience – part performance and part workshop – which genuinely puts the sense of play back into Shakespeare’s late work and that is truly interactive: any child can get the chance to play out the scenes initiated by the actors. The massed versions of Ferdinand and Miranda meeting for the first time are a comic delight, the teenagers revelling in creating the sense of two people whose eyes are out on stalks.
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