Follow Up on Trust

Well I appreciated your guys' comments so much from the last post that I thought I would blog in response to them. To catch up anyone who missed it, you can read the post here, scroll down if you're on my main blog, or keep reading until the end of this paragraph for a summary. In Acts 3 and 4 we read about many different story lines. In one of them, Caliban swears loyalty to Stephano, when he already has a master, Prospero. My comment to that was, "if he can't keep his loyalty to Prospero, he can't keep his loyalty to Stephano." By the end of the play, if the principle stands true, Caliban again would have flip-flopped.

Reading Act V, I will be honest, I was kind of struggling following what Prospero was saying. I knew already what was going to happen, but the details were hard to catch. However, when Caliban came on stage, his line hit me like a sack of bricks. He transferred his loyalty again! Caliban says he was mistaken to "worship this dull fool!" Line 2373.
If someone cannot be trusted with another's secret, fail to trust them with yours. I'm not saying to go around not trusting people. In fact, like my high school English teacher emphasized, "you have my trust until you prove you can't be trusted" is a good way to live. There are so many elements of trust in Shakespeare's plays.
Lastly I wanted to touch again on the value of trust. Two people I have a lot of trust in are my mission president and my professor who took a group of students (including me) to Asia. One day after meeting with my professor, I reflected on our relationship. He is one of the few people I could honestly trust with my life. He and my mission president are people I know will do what they say. That is something to strive for.

A Good First Impression

I wanted to take a shot at directing some aspects of the second scene of "the Tempest." After Miranda and Prosperous are talking for a while, Ariel comes in to take orders from his master. This is one of the things I envision from the play...

For some reason, hearing him speak of being invisible makes me think of Harry Potter's invisible cloak. If we could somehow get an invisible cloak so that the audience can see the shape, but not really know if they are seeing a person or imagining it, that would be perfect for Ariel’s appearance on stage! After walking around a little, but not drawing too much attention, Ariel would rip off the cloak and bowing say, "All hail great master!"

This would develop him as a character of mischief and fit his nature of “lurking around,” almost like the servant in Mr. Deeds. If we can make it seem as though Ariel is there the whole time and then appears it would be a great first impression.

Next, when Prosperous calls Caliban onto the stage, Miranda says, “'Tis a villain sir, I do not love to look on.” Just then we would hear gargling noises and Miranda would be frightened. When Prosperous speaks his next line, Calibans response would come from under the stage as if inside a glowing hole. During the second response, the audience would see his hands slowly pull his wet slimy body out of the hole. Covered with seaweed, he would come out of the hole and with fear of Prosperous answer him. This would give the audience a good first impression as to what kind of character Caliban is going to be.

These first appearances would bring a lot to these characters. Just like a first impression is made when we meet someone, an audience makes judgments on characters when they first enter the stage of a play.