SHAKESPEARE’S Tempest will be performed by the award-winning Illyria as part of “Shakespeare’s Weekend” at The Elizabethan Playhouse, Manor Farm, Corsley, BA12 7QE on Sunday 8th September at 3.00pm.
The Tempest is widely recognised as Shakespeare’s last complete work and the greatest of plays.
The magician Prospero is marooned on an island with his daughter Miranda. With the assistance of a powerful air spirit he keeps in servitude, he conjures up a storm to shipwreck his enemies on the shore of the island. Inexorably they are driven towards the centre of the island to answer to Prospero – until Prospero learns that in spite of everything Miranda has met and fallen in love with Ferdinand, the son of his enemy.
Which is the greater – his thirst for revenge or his aptitude for forgiveness? And why did Shakespeare write the Tempest?
Tickets are £30 which includes the play, an introduction by scholar Professor Gerard Kilroy, champagne tea in the Hall of the Manor and more. Places are limited. For more details on see: www.theelizabethan playhouse.com or email office@theelizabethanplayhouse.com or call 01373 832113
Sir John Thynne lived in the Manor at Corsley in the 1560s whilst building his grand estate at Longleat. Later, his widow Dorothy and Sir Carew Raleigh were married from the house, with Carew’s brother Sir Walter as best man. Whilst Sir John provided the setting, the Raleigh brothers were the artistic inspiration for this Playhouse.
“In converting Sir John Thynne’s Wayne House into a Playhouse, we have tried to replicate the Elizabethan theatres that Carew and Walter Raleigh would have visited,” says the organisers. “We have taken details, adapted and adopted and been as authentic to that Age as today’s world permits.”
