Artistic director of Out of Chaos theatre company, Paul O’Mahony, has collaborated with Vache Baroque for a new semi-opera based on The Tempest. Here he talks about the characters’ power games, high and low-tech experiments with sound, and the joy of foraging for props
One of the things that most fascinates me about Shakespeare’s The Tempest is the way it looks at power. How do we deploy it, how do we let go of it? How hard is it to hand over authority to others? Most of the people who pitch up on Prospero’s island seem to become interested very quickly in how they might rule it. Some want to exert power over other people, while others are interested in power over nature and how we manage natural resources. All of this speaks very strongly to audiences in 2026.
Something that draws me to Shakespeare as a director – and, indeed, to more ancient classical texts – is how compelling it is to realise that people have been posing and wrestling with the same questions as we have for centuries. This really came home to me during lockdown when, in 2020, my theatre company Out of Chaos staged every single Greek tragedy over 40 consecutive weeks, and live streamed it. (We also staged Greek comedies because we ran out of tragedies, and did a 24-hour reading of The Odyssey with actors in six continents!)
When I was reading Classics at Oxford, we were always told that these works were timeless – and I’d repeated it as a maxim – but I realised that I’d never actually put it to the test. Yet when we were reading them every Wednesday, with all of them – even some of the more obscure Euripides – the ideas and emotions were so fresh and vivid, it felt as if we’d specially selected them for that particular week.
The Tempest, of course, has several aspects to it, and it’s been brilliant to work with Vache Baroque on this reimagining. They’re such a fantastic company – and it’s great to see how they’ve grown since they started up during the pandemic to stage outdoor classical music performances. I’ve already done a couple of projects with them, including one a few years ago where we did a couple of scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a one-nighter, which we threw together very quickly. It went really well so we started thinking about other plays we could do together.
In a large part what appealed to us about collaborating on The Tempest was all the music already in the text. At one point, Caliban declares, ‘the isle is full of noises’ and it felt like a very exciting and rich possibility to make that into the fabric of the show. The tradition of reimagining The Tempest as a semi-opera comes from the late 17th century – you have John Dryden and William D’Avenant’s version in 1667, which involves all sorts of extra characters. That was very popular, and different productions had music by composers including Pelham Humfrey, Matthew Locke, and later Purcell.
We didn’t want to use Dryden and D’Avenant’s updated text – even though it did so well in its time – but we did want to take some of the music that was created around it alongside other works chosen by the Vache Baroque team. We’ve looked a lot at the different ways the music can help tell the story, sometimes replacing text, sometimes complementing text, sometimes underscoring text. Beyond that we’ve worked with a great team that’s created a cinematic surround-sound design. Alongside the musical instruments, there are sounds from nature and even sounds taken from the audience.
One effect we’re creating will be through recording people’s voices on the day of each performance, so those will be echoing around amid the other noises. We really want to capture that sense of there being spirits in nature. Alongside the sounds from the natural world that are part of this environment – such as birdsong and the rustling of wind in the trees – these more curated sounds will heighten the world we want to show.
The setting for the production has inevitably been an inspiration – we’re right next to this beautiful lake and ancient woodland. Working there is a constant reminder of the power of nature and the sense of magic that can come with that. As a company we’re foraging for wood – Prospero’s staff is one of the props that comes directly from our surroundings. There are also moments in the text that relate to the woodland – early on Prospero talks about rescuing Ariel from the pine where the witch Sycorax had imprisoned him. He himself threatens to imprison him in an oak tree if he doesn’t obey him. So the setting really brings it alive, giving a stronger connection to the imagery.
Working with the changing light there is definitely key to the atmosphere. Our production starts at 5.30pm – and since it’s the end of August it will still be daylight. It’s a two hour production, with an hour for a picnic in the middle, so it finishes by 8.30pm in the dark. While the show itself is in a tent, it’s open at the back, so everyone will have a view of the lake and the wood. There’s a lot of magic we can create with lighting in the trees.
Something that’s surprised me – coming back to the text – is the question of how much of what Prospero does is a plan and how much of it is improvisation. We’ve talked about this a lot. Prospero’s meant to be all powerful on the island, but what’s interesting is the degree to which his plans don’t go as intended. We’ve also been thinking a lot around the story about Caliban and his assault on Prospero’s daughter Miranda – which takes place before the play itself starts. How recent has the assault been, and how does that affect certain scenes? That set of relationships between Caliban, Miranda and Prospero has yielded some really interesting discussions.
On a practical level, our rehearsals have brought together baroque musicians, opera singers, and actors. It’s been wonderful to see how each group is bringing their own incredible skills to bear on the production. I’ve been speaking to actors who are saying how amazed they are by the singers and what they’re doing, while the opera singers are completely blown away by what the actors are doing. It’s the same with the musicians – everyone’s learning from each other.
I think that what we’ve created is faithful to the original while reframing it in a different and exciting way. We’ve made so many choices that emphasise it in different ways throughout. Part of this is down to the semi-operatic form and the way that it helps bring everything together. Hopefully that will bring out the magic as well.
Vache Baroque’s The Tempest continues on September 5th and 6th. For more information, click here.
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