Caliban In The Tempest

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As The Director Of ‘The Tempest’, What Advice Would You Give To The Actor Playing Caliban In These Two Extracts?

Act 3 Scene 2

There are many different things that as a director, I would need to say to ‘Caliban’ to make the play run smoothly

        In my opinion the first bit of action that I would give to Caliban is as follows: when Stephano says to him on line three “servant monster, drink to me”, Caliban should hesitate a bit, then shove the bottle to his mouth and gulp the alcohol down fast in order to get it down faster. Caliban is the victim of Stephano and Trinculo; they are forcing him to drink. It is not given to him as a form of relaxation; rather it is used in order to please the ones who are feeding him. The next piece is when Stephano says on line six, “thy eyes are almost set in thy head”. Caliban should open his eyes wide and act drowsy and partly oblivious to the surroundings around him. He should also have a very glazed expression on his face after drinking. In the next line of Stephano (line eleven), when he says, “my man-monster hath drowned his tongue in sack” Caliban should hang his tongue out of his mouth as if it is numb and he could possibly drool a bit before repositioning it back in his mouth.

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 The next piece of performance that Caliban is to do is on line twenty-one when he says, “let me lick thy shoe. I’ll not serve him. He is not valiant!” Here Caliban should literally kneel before Stephano and he should try to lick his shoe. Then stand up straightaway, jab his finger at Trinculo repeatedly whilst saying he is not valiant. (He can possibly, behind Stephano’s back, make some actions to make Trinculo believe he will kill him). When Caliban then says in line twenty-eight, “Lo, how he mocks me!”  Caliban should speak in a shrill voice to show that he ...

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