South African actors and Indiana Unviersity students are performing Shakespeare's final play, in a production directed by IU faculty member Murray McGibbon with guest South African actor Stephen Gurney in the role of the magician Prospero.
Stephen Gurney along with the South African and some of the IU students are veterans of a production that Murray McGibbon directed in South Africa two years ago. George Walker talked with Gurney and McGibbon about this second opportunity.
"Well, it is great to have a chance to do it again so soon," said McGibbon. "There's the opportunity to get things right that weren't quite right the first time. And there's always something new to find and explore in the man that I call the world's greatest playwright."
For Stephen Gurney, playing Prospero again has also been a delight. "Prospero is such a deep character, so indefinable. We think that all the characters and the island of the play are part of the magician's consciousness. He's a one man allegory of man's growth and development."
For Gurney, this production also offered another pleasure." I've never been to the United States before," he said. "I and my wife have always wanted to come here and it's more than lived up to our expectations."
Listen to WFIU's George Walker's review of The Tempest.