Actors and film crew prepare to shoot the scene. Onscreen text reads 'Shakespeare Unbound - The Tempest 1.2 - In conversation with John Bell'.
John Bell is interviewed by James Evans.
JAMES EVANS:
John, is Prospero a benevolent leader of the island? Or is he an awful tyrant?
JOHN BELL:
(Chuckles) Um, I think he's both of those things at various times. He's a hard character to pin down.
Shot of John Bell and Miranda Tapsell performing as Prospero and Miranda.
JOHN BELL:
He's certainly benevolent towards Miranda. And he can be benevolent when he feels like it. But, in fact, he's an enslaver. He enslaves Caliban. He enslaves Ariel, having freed him/her. He enslaves Ferdinand. He seems to need to control people by tying them up and having them do his will. And his whole plan, to get people onto this island and punish them, is one of control and enforcing. And I think it takes a lot for him to let go of all that and untie people and let them free. I think that's what the central journey of the play is.
JAMES EVANS:
Caliban describes a time, during that scene, when he and Prospero and Miranda seem to have been living in harmony. Is that a reliable account?
JOHN BELL:
I think it is. You know, it's interesting to look at the early days of New South Wales and Governor Phillip, and the way he befriended Bennelong. He was dead set on making friends with the Aborigines and finding a way of treating with them that was humane. And then, after that, it all goes to pot. You get sort of wars between white settlers, and land grabs, and that part of colonialism then takes over. And it takes a long, long time - and it still hasn't happened - when there is full reconciliation between those who owned the island and those who'd come and took it away from them.
JAMES EVANS:
So obviously The Tempest has resonances for a lot of contemporary Australian issues. Caliban says, 'This island's mine.' So whose island is it?
JOHN BELL:
I think it has resonance for any country that has been colonised. And every country you can think of has been colonised by somebody. Even England was colonised several times over, long before Shakespeare was born. So I think Shakespeare could see that was happening in the New World. He was writing at the time when Virginia was being settled. He could see what was happening in South America, with the Spanish destroying entire civilisations throughout the South American continent. He knew from his ancient history that every colonising power does the same thing. You move in, you take the country away from people. You enslave them or subjugate them. You take away their language and religion, and you impose your own. And that's what colonisation is all about. He saw it was happening every time and again in the New World. So one way you could read this play is to say this is a warning, saying, 'Whatever you do in the New World, don't stuff it up like you have in the past.'
JAMES EVANS:
Shakespeare gives quite a lot of beautiful poetic language to Caliban. Why do you think that is? I mean, we see Caliban as quite a rough character. But he speaks very eloquently and beautifully about the island. Why?
JOHN BELL:
I think there was an idea that there was such a thing as the noble savage, that there was a kind of paradisal state before the colonisers moved in, that natives of themselves had an innocence and a connection with nature, an appreciation of beauty and music, and their own language. And then we come in and take all that away. We chop down the trees and put cement everywhere and say, 'This is it now. This is civilisation.' So I think he had an empathy with the noble savage, or the idea of a noble savage. Who are we to walk in and say, 'Your language is no longer good enough. Your religion is stuffed. This is the way to be civilised - be like us'?