THEATER REVIEW : ‘Tempest’ Shakes With Refreshing Rage, Twists of Tone

There is, in some respects, no sweeter play by Shakespeare than his final one, “The Tempest.” Written only five years before his death, it is moody, bittersweet, wistful and forgiving, and it contains some of the most lyrical speeches Shakespeare ever set down. If it is not an old man’s play (he was 47 at the time), it is certainly an older man’s play, full of rue trying to mellow gracefully.

As a result, few actors who play Prospero, the betrayed Duke of Milan who has become a master magician in his island exile, bring to the role as much spleen as does Neil Vipond in the “Tempest” that has just launched A Noise Within’s third season in Glendale.

This is not at all bad. Under Sabin Epstein’s intellectually probing direction, it shows a man who has learned to control a violent temper that still manages to get the better of him now and then. Such mood swings add intriguing and humanizing dimensions to this three-hour production.

This is a Prospero who has contained but not lost his anger, even as he has learned to use witchcraft benignly. The shipwreck and entrapment of his brother Antonio (Cully Fredricksen) and other members of the Italian aristocracy, on the very island to which Antonio’s treachery had exiled him years before, have a palpable element of vengeful pleasure for this Prospero.

Such truculence also makes his rough treatment of Caliban (a larger-than-life David Drummond) and his enslavement of the spirit Ariel (Steve Weingartner, as solid as matter and as graceful as air) the actions of a man used to ruling with an ungenerous hand.

So whatever this production lacks in romance and costly special effects, it makes up for in special considerations. The play is austerely staged on a bare, handsome runway backed by a large disc of muted gold (Bill Eigenbrodt is the designer). The often omitted masque, “the contract of true love to celebrate” between Miranda and Ferdinand (Emily Heebner and Josiah Polhemus), is also given an uncommon twist.

In their stately walk, outstretched arms, towering headdresses and scant costumes of black chiffon (designed by Charles Tomlinson and Rebecca L. Wu), Iris (Betsy Ferguson), Ceres (Hisa Takakuwa) and Juno (Judy Dickerson) seem to be Ziegfeld showgirls on parade.

It’s an odd idea that somehow fits and serves as a relief from those spreads of grain and fruit that so often accompany this scene. Nor is the lowbrow comedy neglected. Dierk Torsek (Trinculo) and Eric David Johnson (Stephano) join Drummond in the slapstick but intelligent madness abetted by Weingartner’s precisely teasing and hovering Ariel.

The acting all around is solid: Clear and well-spoken, with Heebner and Polhemus managing to convey ardor without intemperate transport. In their creamy 1920s suits, the gang of shipwrecked lords is appropriately malefic, dejected or philosophical according to each circumstance.

But Vipond sets the tone and, except for an unfortunate tendency to listen to the sound of his own opulent voice, this Prospero’s sudden shifts and small cruelties keep the magic from becoming purely routine or purely cloying. He’s a man to be reckoned with.

How much of this concept is Epstein’s, and how much of it rests on Vipond’s view of Prospero as a fellow who forgives better than he forgets, hardly matters. The results are what they are, and make for an auspicious if protracted start to this third season.

* “The Tempest,” A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale. Thursday through Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday , 7 p.m. Also Oct. 28 and 30, Nov. 10, 13, 19 and 24 , 8 p.m.; Nov. 14 and 20 , 2 p.m.; Nov. 28 , 7 p.m. Ends Nov. 28. $15. (818) 546-1924. Running time: 3 hours.