4 September 2014

Prospero's speech

Just a little music for today. I am not much of a fan of Loreena McKennitt, but here she touched upon one of my old obsessions (though not so much now) of Shakespeare, and did so in a haunting way. Prospero's spech at the closing of The Tempest is a fairly ordinary little closing speech for a comedy of the period. The actor breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience directly, asking for their applause so he may stop acting a role and return home. McKennitt, however, puts the speech to a chant like tone, and turns it into a plea for mercy and a cry of despair.

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