“Eye of the Storm”
The storm that the actors stage is highly theatrical, a series of sound effects and playful pantomimes staged by the actors themselves. The actors' actions, combined with the language of the text, help to bring the storm "to life." Gonzalo describes the storm thusly, “Try to understand what I’m telling you: imagine a huge cylinder like the chimney of a lamp, fast as a galloping horse, but in the center as still and unmoving as a Cyclops' eye. That is what we’re talking about when we say 'eye of the storm’ and that’s what we have to get.”
Final image
At the end of the play, a stage direction reads, "Time passes, symbolized by the curtain's being lowered halfway and reraised. In semi-darkness Prospero appears, aged and weary. His gestures are jerky and automatic, his speech weak, toneless, trite." This is an image of a fallen leader, a sorcerer whose powers have failed him in the face of the unwelcome intrusive voice of the man who served him.
Life in the Tree
Ariel asserts, “Sometimes I almost regret it (being freed from Sycorax)…After all, I might have turned into a real tree in the end…Tree: that’s a word that really gives me a thrill! It often springs to mind: palm tree-springing into the sky like a fountain ending in nonchalant, squid-like elegance. The baobab-twisted like the soft entrails of some monster." Ariel comes from the tree, and here he suggests that during his time of imprisonment within the tree he was in fact freer than he is now.
Masks
The first stage direction presents an image that calls attention to the theatricality of the play. It reads: "Ambiance of a psychodrama. the actors enter singly, at random, and each chooses for himself a mask." Masks are a traditional part of many forms of African performance and spiritual practices, and signal that the play itself is a kind of ritual that hearkens back to African traditions rather than European theatrical tropes.
