“The isle is full of noises,” says Caliban, and it certainly is in Flute Theatre’s groundbreaking version of the play, created for children and young people with autism and their families.
That noise is often laughter as the cast and audience create the story together sharing the same space – a circle on the floor with a splash of blue to suggest the sea and a patch of yellow to evoke sand.
It’s a unique theatrical experience – part performance and part workshop – which genuinely puts the sense of play back into Shakespeare’s late work and that is truly interactive: any child can get the chance to play out the scenes initiated by the actors. The massed versions of Ferdinand and Miranda meeting for the first time are a comic delight, the teenagers revelling in creating the sense of two people whose eyes are out on stalks.
You only get the bare bones of play and story, but adapter Kelly Hunter cunningly offers key scenes, so even if you had no knowledge of the play you would understand the central relationships, and where the power lies in them. The children are introduced to the actors beforehand, and dictate their own level of involvement. At the performance I attended, even the most reluctant eventually found their way into the circle and became participants. It’s a pleasure to watch, and I reckon it would be impossible for anyone witnessing the final scene, in which Ariel is set free, not to feel a tingle of real joy.
• At the Orange Tree theatre, Richmond, until 4 November. Box office: 020-8940 3633.
