Oxford University Press Shakespeare Quarterly

"Something Rich and Strange": Caliban's Theatrical Metamorphoses
Author(s): Virginia Mason Vaughan

Source: Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Winter, 1985), pp. 390-405
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2870303
Accessed: 06-03-2019 10:11 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to Shakespeare Quarterly
This content downloaded from 54.228.195.183 on Wed, 06 Mar 2019 10:11:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
"Something Rich and
Strange": Caliban' s
Theatrical Metamorphoses
VIRGINIA MASON VAUGHAN
S INCE CALIBAN'S FIRST APPEARANCE in 1611, Shakespeare's monster has

undergone remarkable transformations.' From drunken beast in the eigh-
teenth century, to noble savage and missing link in the nineteenth, to Third
World victim of oppression in the mid-twentieth, Caliban's stage images reflect
changing Anglo-American attitudes toward primitive man. Shakespeare's mon-
ster once represented bestial vices that must be eradicated; now he personifies
noble rebels who symbolize the exploitation of European imperialism.
Caliban's malleability derives, perhaps, from his scant 180 lines and his
ambiguous image in Shakespeare's text. In the 1623 Folio (where The Tempest
was first printed), Caliban appears in the cast of characters as a "salvage and
deformed slave." Of his slavery the text leaves no doubt: throughout the play
he is called a slave, and he ruefully admits it himself. The text is also persistent,
though imprecise, about Caliban's deformity. Before the monster appears on
stage, Prospero says that except for Caliban, the island had not been "honored
with a human shape" when he arrived (I.ii.282-83); later Prospero calls Caliban
a "mis-shapen knave" (V.i.268). But the play's only details about Caliban's
appearance are several references to fish-like features. Trinculo initially calls
him a "fish" who is "Legg'd like a man; and his fins like arms" (II.ii.25-
35). On closer view, however, Trinculo decides that "this is no fish, but an
islander" (II.ii.36-37). Later Trinculo describes Caliban as a "debosh'd fish"
(III.ii.25) and "half a fish and half a monster" (II.ii.28). Near the end of the
play Antonio refers to him as "a plain fish" (V.i.266). Prospero once calls him
"thou tortoise" (I.ii.317), though the epithet probably refers to Caliban's di-
latoriness rather than to his appearance. Not surprisingly, Caliban has often
been portrayed on the stage or in illustrations with scales, fins, and other aquatic
attributes.
I Citations from The Tempest are taken from the Arden edition, ed. Frank Kermode (London:
Methuen, 1954). I am grateful to both Charles H. Shattuck and Alden T. Vaughan for editorial
and substantive advice on early versions of this article.
VIRGINIA M. VAUGHAN, Associate Professor and Chair of the English Depart-

ment at Clark University, has published articles on Shakespeare's history plays,
including the recent essay "Between Tetralogies: King John as Transition" in
Shakespeare Quarterly.
CALIBAN'S THEATRICAL METAMORPHOSES 391
"Monster" is Caliban's most frequent sobriquet. The term appears in

40 times, usually with a pejorative adjective: "shallow," "weak," "credu-
lous," "most perfidious and drunken," "puppyheaded," "scurvy," "abomi-
nable," "ridiculous," "howling," "drunken," "ignorant," and "lost." Only
"brave" might be considered a favorable modifier, but it is almost certainly
meant sarcastically. More neutral are "servant-monster," "man-monster,'" and
"poor monster." To the extent that monster implies physical deformity, these
abundant reminders strengthen the notion of Caliban as grotesque. They do
nothing, however, to clarify our picture of him.
Neither do other references to Caliban. He is often called "mooncalf," sug-
gesting stupidity and an amorphous shape. According to Pliny's Natural His-
tory, translated into English in 1601, a mooncalf is "a lumpe of flesh without
shape, without life. "2 Once Caliban is called "this thing of darkness," possibly
to imply a dusky skin though more likely to indicate a faulty character. And
once Prospero calls him "thou earth." On other occasions he is termed "a
freckled whelp hag-born," and once he is "Hag-seed." Several times Caliban's
parentage-his mother was an Algerian witch, his father was the devil-is
invoked, as in "demi-devil" and "a born devil." From this confusion of ep-
ithets no clear image emerges. Shakespeare seems to have invited his actors
and directors to see Caliban however they wished. They have not been reluctant
to accept his invitation.
Edmond Malone reported in his 1821 Variorum edition that Caliban had al-
ways appeared dressed in animal skins:
The dress worn by this character, which doubtless was originally prescribed by the
poet himself, and has been continued, I believe, since his time, is a large bearskin,
or the skin of some other animal; and he is usually represented with long shaggy
hair.3
How Malone knew what Shakespeare prescribed we cannot say. The closing
of all public theatres during the Interregnum destroyed all but the most scattered
clues about how Shakespeare's plays were originally performed. When the play-
houses opened again in 1660, Shakespeare's fellow actors were dead; the theatre
as Shakespeare had known it was transformed to suit Restoration audiences.4
In 1660 William Davenant, who claimed a close relationship with Shake-
speare, formed an acting company under the Duke of York's patronage. An
agreement of 12 December 1660 gave Davenant's actors exclusive rights to
nine of Shakespeare's plays, including The Tempest. But Shakespeare's text
struck Davenant as unsuitable for Restoration tastes. Collaborating with John
Dryden, in 1667 he produced an adaptation: The Tempest; or, The Enchanted
Isle. Dryden and Davenant simplified Shakespeare's characters, added an extra
boy and girl (Hippolito and Dorinda) and a she-monster named Sycorax, in-
serted moralistic songs and sayings, and rearranged scenes and changed epi-
2 C. Plinius Secundus, The Historie of the World, trans. Philemon Holland (London, 1601).
3Edmond Malone, ed., The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare (London: F. C. and J.
Rivington, et al., 1821), xv, 13. Malone suggests that Caliban was Shakespeare's version of a
Patagonian. See pp. 11-14.
4 See George Odell, Shakespeare From Betterton to Irving (1920; rpt. New York: Dover Pub-
lications, 1966) i, 1-42 for a full account of changes in the Restoration theatre. Also see Montague
392 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY
sodes-all in accord with contemporary notions of decorum. Dryden and Davenant

also padded the Stephano-Trinculo plot with two new sailors, Ventoso and Mus-
tacho, who join in comic machinations to take control of the island and to win
the affections of Sycorax. This version, later combined with songs and scenes
from Shadwell's operatic treatment (1674), became extremely popular.5 Other
operatic productions were staged in the 1690s (Purcell), 1756 (Garrick), and
1776-79 (Covent Garden). Even non-operatic versions had more music, song,
and dance than Shakespeare's text indicates. From the Restoration to the mid-
eighteenth century, then, The Tempest was a musical extravaganza.
Caliban in the Dryden-Davenant Tempest is a lecherous drunk. As a burlesque
slave to Stephano and Trinculo, he makes love to his sister, Sycorax. Later he
tries to couple Sycorax with Trinculo, a scheme motivated by his own ambition.
Folger Shakespeare Library
Figure 1. "Prospero and Caliban," engraved by John Boydell (ca. 1787) after a drawing by
Henry Fuseli (1741-1825). Printed in London by George Virtue. This shows a devilish
Caliban, the eighteenth-century personification of vice.
Caliban's lines from the original Tempest are so cut and altered that he becomes
the epitome of monstrousness, a non-human symbol of human iniquity.
Shakespeare's text portrays Caliban as a primitive man who poses basic ques-
tions about the values and benefits of Jacobean "civilization." In the Dryden-
Davenant Tempest, this function belongs to Hippolito, a beautiful young man
who is kept in a cave by Prospero, separated from Miranda (and her sister
Dorinda), because of the magician's fear that the youth will be destroyed by
a woman. Hippolito is of noble birth but is brought up without the benefits of
Summers, Shakespeare Adaptations (London: Jonathan Cape, 1922), pp. xvii-cvii.

5Christopher Spencer, ed., Five Adaptations of Shakespeare (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press,
1965), p. 5.
culture and education. He was designed by Davenant, says Dryden in his Pre-
face to the 1670 edition, as a counterpart for Miranda. Hippolito is "a Man
who has never seen a Woman; that by this means those two Characters of
Innocence and Love might the more illustrate and commend each other."6 Drawing
upon long-established European traditions, Dryden and Davenant may have meant
Hippolito to represent a benign version of the wild man.7 He lives in a state
of nature. He uses reason to understand his world, but he is unsophisticated
in the courtly arts of love and dueling. He does not understand the difference
between love and lust, nor can he comprehend that he is to pledge himself to
one woman only. Dorinda, Miranda, Ferdinand, and Prospero undertake his
education, and as the play concludes it is Hippolito who exclaims "O brave
new world that hath such people in't!"
Where does that leave Caliban? He is no longer natural man but a savage
monster who reflects European fears of the non-European world. Two of Dry-
den's mariners reveal their conception of "salvages":
Mustacho: Our ship is sunk and we can never get home agen: we must e'en turn
Salvages, and the next that catches his fellow may eat him.
Ventoso: No, no, let us have a government; for if we live well and orderly, Heav'n
will drive the Shipwracks ashore to make us all rich, therefore let us carry
good Consciences, and not eat one another.8
Dryden's Caliban is just such a "salvage." As the play closes, he resolves to

be more wise, but he is incapable of suing for grace as did Shakespeare's
Caliban.9
When Samuel Pepys saw The Enchanted Isle, he described it as "the most
innocent play that ever I saw." He admired the Dryden-Davenant echo song
between Ferdinand and Ariel, but he did not mention Caliban.'0 In ensuing
years, this version-with songs and scenes from Shadwell's opera added-
played continually to crowded audiences. This Tempest was produced at the
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, almost every year from 1701 to 1756, its popularity
unabated.
In March 1756, however, David Garrick, actor-manager for the Drury Lane,
experimented with a new operatic Tempest. Garrick pruned Shakespeare's lines,
incorporated Dryden-Davenant material, and added 32 songs by John Chris-
topher Smith. Larded with arias for the major characters, the opera had even
less space for Caliban. In an early scene, Trinculo refers to Caliban as an
amphibious monster, but no sooner is the "dear tortoise" introduced than he
is forgotten. The opera contains no resolution to the Stephano-Trinculo subplot
except a drinking song in Act JJJ.1I This opera, not surprisingly, failed. After
a short run and some bad reviews, Garrick admitted defeat and closed it.
The following year (20 October 1757) Garrick offered a new version, billed
as "written by Shakespeare." It returned to the First Folio, minus 432 lines
6 John Dryden, The Tempest: or, The Enchanted Isle (London, 1670), sig. A2v. A facsimile
edition is George Robert Guffey, ed., After the Tempest (Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark
Memorial Library, 1969).
7 See Richard Bernheimer, Wild Men in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ.
Press, 1950).
8 Dryden, p. 19.
9 Ibid.
10 Samuel Pepys, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Robert Latham and William Matthews (Berke-
ley: Univ. of California Press, 1974), VIII, 522.
II See David Garrick, The Tempest: An Opera (London, 1756). Reproduced in Guffey.
and with 14 added. Part of Garrick's growing effort to restore Shakespeare's

original text, the production was a success.12 It ran nearly every year until
1787, when John Philip Kemble substituted his own acting text. Kemble re-
introduced Dorinda and Hippolito, but he eliminated Sycorax, Ventoso, and
Mustacho. His Caliban had Shakespeare's original lines.'3 This hodgepodge
persisted until 1838 when William Charles Macready returned to Shakespeare's
text.
Despite the paucity of details about the actors who played Caliban during
the Restoration and the early eighteenth century, it is clear that Caliban was
Figure 2. An 1820 engraving by T. H. Rodd

of a "puppy-headed" Caliban from a paint-
ing by John Hamilton Mortimer (1741-79).
a minor role. Actors were selected for a voice and figure that could portray the
monster's grotesque qualities. Edward Machan, a lame actor who failed as
Richard III, acted Caliban at Phillips' Booth in Bartholomew Fair during 1749.14
Edward Berry (1700-1760), Caliban in Garrick's restoration of the original
text, was notable for his huge body and booming voice and was accused of
howling on all occasions.15 James Dance, also known as James Love (1721-
74), acted Caliban at Drury Lane from 1765 to 1769. As one commentator
notes, "Roles like Jaques, Sir Toby Belch, Caliban, Jobson, and Falstaff were
suited to his manner, his unwieldy figure, and a voice described . . . 'as some-
what asthmatical, and abounding with many inharmonious tones.' "16
Caliban was also played by comedians who had some musical talent. Charles
Bannister, Drury Lane's Caliban for nearly thirty years (1777 into the 1800s),
was praised for a voice "which he used . . . both as a tool of the mimic's trade
and with near-operatic skill in dramatic singing." He also boasted a "Herculean
figure."17 Another comedian, Charles Blakes, portrayed Caliban from 1759 to
12 Charles Beecher Hogan, Shakespeare in the Theatre: 1701-1800 (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1952), ii, 636-38.
'3 See John Philip Kemble Promptbooks, ed. Charles H. Shattuck (Charlottesville: Univ. Press
of Virginia, 1974), viII.
14 Philip Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans, A Biographical Dictionary
of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-
1800, ix (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1982), 402.
15 Ibid., ii, 64.
16 Ibid., ix, 360.
17 Ibid., i, 262.
1763. Blakes sang sea songs during most intervals. In Tempest productions,
this must have seemed an appropriate pastime for the fishy monster.18
Caliban's relative insignificance to eighteenth-century productions is under-
standable. Caliban did not suit the age's notions of comedy. As early as Shad-
well, argues Stuart M. Tave in his study of eighteenth-century comic theory,
theatre critics had "ruled out natural imperfections as fit objects for satire."
Caliban's grotesque deformities were not the proper vehicle for good-natured
wit. Moreover, his natural folly was inappropriate to an art form that should
deal with artificial follies. Only with the Romantic movement's appreciation
of humor mixed with pathos could theatregoers respond to Caliban's poetic
imaginings and longing for freedom. 19
Caliban did not suit the eighteenth-century definition of a Noble Savage. If
anyone in the Dryden-Davenant version had that role, it had to be Hippolito.
In an age of reason that believed "the proper study of mankind is man,"20
Caliban was too irrational, too inhuman, to warrant serious consideration. To
generalize broadly, the eighteenth century was concerned with mankind as a
social unit, civilized by generally accepted norms of behavior and commonly
held beliefs. The poet's province was human nature-the collective wisdom of
human experience. Thus, when Samuel Johnson praised Shakespeare in his
Preface, he admired the poet's "just representations of general nature. "21 Sub-
human, idiosyncratic, passionate (as opposed to rational), and uncivilized, Cal-
iban was not likely to become the age's favorite dramatic character.
Unlike the Noble Savage, Caliban did not point to the possibility of progress
by civilized man if left untrammeled by social institutions.22 Instead Caliban
suggested the absolute need for such institutions. Like Gulliver's Yahoos, Cal-
iban's monstrousness revealed the lower aspects of human appetite. Since he
represented bestial desires without the control of right reason, he could never
be considered sympathetically as a human being.
Caliban's image would shift with the times. With the rise of romanticism,
the Noble Savage no longer had to be a man of reason. He could be instead
a creature of emotion and sensibility. He could be seen as one who depended
on intuition for a direct apprehension of nature. Like Wordsworth's poet, Cal-
iban could express his natural affinities in the "spontaneous overflow of pow-
erful feelings. "23 As a result, Caliban's image was to change drastically during
the nineteenth century.
II
In the early nineteenth century, Caliban's role became more desirable. When
John Emery (1777-1822) played Caliban to John Philip Kemble's 1806 Pros-
pero, he captured more than the audience's laughter, according to an anonymous
witness:
18 Ibid., ii, 150.

19 Stuart M. Tave, The Amiable Humorist (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 94.
20 See Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Man," The Poems of Alexander Pope (New Haven: Yale
Univ. Press, 1963).
21 Samuel Johnson, "Preface to Shakespeare," Johnson: Prose and Poetry, ed. Mona Wilson
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1967).
22 For a discussion of the Noble Savage, see Robert F. Berkhofer, The White Man's Indian (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), pp. 72-79.
23 See the Preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800), reprinted in William Words-
worth, Selected Poems and Prefaces, ed. Jack Stillinger (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), pp. 445-
64.
. . . this roughness as well as awe, Emery most inevitably d

in the vehement manner and high voice with which he cur
thoughtful lowness of tone, softened from his usual coarse br
he worshipped his new deity. . . t [He] approached to terrif
described the various tortures inflicted on him by the magician,
snakes that "stare and hiss him into madness, . . ." The monste
into himself as he proceeded, and when he pictured the torme
his brain, glared with his eyes, and gnashed his teeth with an
of revenge.24
Emery's dramatic interpretation invoked elements of Caliban that had been ne-
glected in earlier productions. Now there was scope for Caliban's poetic sen-
sibilities and tragic suffering as well as for his grotesquerie.
Contemporary critical assessments of Caliban also revealed a shift from dis-
missal based on his lack of enlightened reason to a romantic appreciation of
his poetic suggestiveness. In his lecture on The Tempest (1811-12), Samuel
Taylor Coleridge described Caliban not as a sotted monster, but as a "noble
being; a man in the sense of the imagination, all the images he utters are drawn
from nature, and are highly poetical. "25 William Hazlitt agreed. He saw Caliban
as Shakespeare's portrait of "the human animal rude and without choice in its
pleasures, but not without the sense of pleasure or some germ of the affec-
tions. "26
In the privacy of their studies, Coleridge and Hazlitt were free to respond
to Shakespeare's original text. Yet on stage, both at Drury Lane and at Covent
Garden, the Kemble-Dryden-Davenant version persisted. William Charles Ma-
cready played Prospero in 1821, 1824, and again in 1833, but he did so un-
happily. Later he described the acting version he was forced to use as a "melange
that was called Shakespeare's Tempest, with songs interpolated by Reynolds
among the mutilations and barbarous ingraftings of Dryden and Davenant."
Macready found the performances tedious and lamented that his role was a
"stupid old proser of commonplace which the acted piece calls Prospero."27
It is not surprising then that when in 1838 Macready revived the Tempest as
Shakespeare had originally conceived it, the new production confirmed the ro-
mantic critics' more sympathetic conceptions of Caliban.
Caliban was by then a more important character, played by George Bennett,
an actor who excelled in tragic as well as comic roles. Besides Caliban, he
was remembered for performances of Sir Toby Belch, Pistol, Enobarbus, Bo-
sola, and Apemantus. Bennett's performance inspired at least one member
of the audience to see Caliban in a fresh light. Bennett, argued Patrick
MacDonnell, delineated "the rude and uncultivated savage, in a style, which
arouses our sympathies." To MacDonnell Caliban was no longer merely a comic
butt; he had become "a creature, in his nature possessing all the rude elements
of the savage, yet maintaining in his mind, a strong resistance to that tyranny
24 From a transcription in the flyleaf of Folger Tempest Promptbook No. 4. Source unknown.
25 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Coleridge on Shakespeare: The Text of the Lectures of 1811-1812,
ed. R. A. Foakes (Charlottesville: Univ. Press of Virginia, 1971), pp. 112-13.
26 William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespeare's Plays (London, 1817), pp. 118-20.
27 The Journal of William Charles Macready, 1832-1851, abr. and ed. by J. C. Trewin (London:
Longmans, Green, 1967), pp. 15-16. A description of Caliban's costume at Drury Lane (1824)
and Covent Garden (1827) in the Folger Tempest Promptbook No. 7 reads, "Entire dress of goat
skin; long claws on the fingers; very dark flesh legs; the hair long, wild, and ragged."
which held him in the thraldom of slavery."28 Bennett began th

of lunging at Prospero during the opening confrontation, then
a wave of the magic wand, and finally writhing in impotent fury.29 Here the
modern Caliban, victim of oppression, was born.
Macready's Tempest ran for 55 performances, netting an average income of
230 pounds a night. In his journal Macready confessed his pleasure: "I look
back on its production with satisfaction, for it has given to the public a play
of Shakespeare's which had never been seen before, and it has proved the charm
of simplicity and poetry." Macready's journal entries indicate that even when
he felt he had been "cold" or "indifferent" in the part, he was well received
and generally called back by the audience.30
Macready's innovative production was soon followed by rival versions. Two
surviving promptbooks provide valuable insights into Caliban's new role. The
first was Samuel Phelps's (1804-78) at Sadler's Wells Theatre in 1847. Phelps
had performed with Macready at Covent Garden and portrayed Antonio in the
1838 Tempest. When Parliament withdrew the exclusive privileges of Drury
Lane and Covent Garden in 1844, Phelps formed a company that specialized
in. higher drama. In his 1847 Tempest Phelps acted Prospero; George Bennett
again portrayed Caliban.
According to the promptbook, the 1847 Caliban was still fairly bestial.
Nevertheless, he was a man-beast, not simply a monster. His first entrance is
carefully described: "Enter Caliban. Opening L of Flat / Crawling out on all
fours as a Beast, rises & threatening Prospero, who raises his wand & checks
him. Caliban recoils as if spell struck" (p. 24). "31 As he describes the fresh
springs and brine pits, Caliban is to be "stamping and gabbling with fury"
(p. 25). (Much of this stage business was to become standard, repeated in
promptbooks throughout the century.) Prospero's reminders of his magical power
make Caliban afraid, and he exits "tremblingly." He rebels in II.ii, indignantly
discarding his burden of wood. He drinks thirstily throughout the scene, while
crawling and kneeling at Stephano's feet. In III.ii Caliban, like Stephano and
Trinculo, is literally falling-down drunk. Says the promptbook: "Caliban speaks
his other speeches either kneeling or sitting on all fours like a beast" (p. 62).
When Ariel mischievously causes Stephano to strike Trinculo, "Caliban shows
a strong and savage expression of joy" (p. 64). This Caliban is surely comical,
but both in his anger and his poetry he displays human dignity.
By the mid-nineteenth century Shakespearean drama was being acted regu-
larly in America as well as in England.32 On 11 April 1854, the comedian
William Burton portrayed Caliban at his own theatre in New York. Visitors
from the Northeast thronged to his theatre to see Burton impersonate Dickensian
28 Patrick MacDonnell, An Essay on the Play of The Tempest (London: John Fellowes, 1840),
pp. 16-19.
29 See Arthur Colby Sprague, Shakespeare and the Actors: The Stage Business in his Plays,
1660-1905 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1944), p. 41.
30 The Diaries of William Charles Macready, 1833-1851, ed. William Toynbee, 2 vols. (London:
Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1912), i, 474-504; ii, 5-9.
31 Citations of stage directions for the Samuel Phelps 1847 production are taken from Folger
Tempest Promptbook No. 13. Page numbers are indicated in parentheses.
32 See Charles H. Shattuck, Shakespeare on the American Stage: From the Hallams to Edwin
Booth (Washington: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1976); and Lawrence W. Levine, "William
Shakespeare and the American People: A Study in Cultural Transformation," American Historical
Review, 89 (1984), 34-66.
characters. They expected broad and coarse humor. His Caliban, however, was
more than comic. His friend and biographer W. L. Keese recalled that
His Caliban we have tried to forget rather than remember, it terrified us and made
us dream bad dreams, but for all of that, we know that it was a surprising im-
personation. 33
An anonymous author, writing in the New York Times on 20 June 1874, recalled
Burton's Caliban:
A wild creature on all fours sprang upon the stage, with claws on his hands, and
some weird animal arrangement about the head partly like a snail. It was an im-
mense conception. Not the great God Pan himself was more the link between man
and beast than this thing. It was a creature of the woods, one of nature's spawns;
it breathed of nuts and herbs, and rubbed itself against the back of trees.
The stage directions from Burton's promptbook bear out this portrayal. Throughout
his speech to Prospero (I.ii), Caliban "roars or yells with rage." His gaberdine
is a large skin, not a cloak. Later he clings to Stephano's keg, growls when
he loses it, and paws Stephano's leg to get it back again. Burton's Caliban was
meant to be animal-like; and his ferocity was awesome.34
Prompt copy for Charles Kean's extravagant 1857 production at the Princess's
Theatre is equally revealing. In accord with standard stage business, John Ry-
der's Caliban flies at Prospero after his opening speech and then shrinks back
when Prospero extends his 'magic wand. The gaberdine scene is milked for all
its humor with the following interplay:
Trinculo nudges Stephano not to give all the wine to Caliban and then goes round
at back to RH. Cal takes a long pull at the bottle. Trin. looks at him in surprise.
Cal turns and looks savagely at Trinc.35
Ryder's costume was later described in Thomas Barry's acting edition:
Brown fleshings, covered with hair, green nails, toes and fingers, fins on shoulders
and arms, calf of legs, webbed fingers and toes, goggles on eyes, wolf skin skirt,
wild wavy wig, beard, and moustache.36
In the Kean costume book at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Caliban has long
toenails and fingernails and is covered with bushy brown fur.37 The era of the
apish Caliban had begun.
III
During the mid-nineteenth century, costumes such as John Ryder's empha-

sized Caliban's animal characteristics. Occasionally, however, the costumer
went to extremes. Dutton Cook insisted in a 1871 review that George Rignold's
"Caliban is perhaps needlessly repulsive of aspect, and the tusks and pasteboard
33 William L. Keese, William E. Burton: Actor, Author, and Manager (New York: G. P. Put-
nam's Sons, 1885), p. 175.
34 See Folger Tempest Promptbook No. 12.
35 See Charles Kean's promptbook, Folger Tempest Promptbook No. 10, p. 37.
36 Cited from Folger Tempest Promptbook No. 4.
37 Charles Kean's costume book, Folger Art Volume d 49, dated 1853.
jaws worn by the actor have the disadvantage of hindering his articulation."38
Despite such difficulties, from Emery's performance on, actors conveyed not
only Caliban's savagery but his tragic sense of Prospero's injustice. The result
was performances human in their emotional power, animal in appearance and
behavior.
The conception of Caliban as an amphibian, somewhere between brute animal
and human being, was made more explicit and timely in Daniel Wilson's book,
Caliban; the Missing Link (1873). Wilson associated Caliban with Darwin's
missing link; to him, Shakespeare's monster personified the evolutionist's the-
oretical "intermediate being, lower than man." Wilson noted Caliban's fish-
like appearance and related it to Darwin's view that humanity evolved from
some species of aquatic animal. At the same time he contended that "though
by some scaly or fin-like appendages, the idea of a fish or sea-monster, is
suggested to all, the form of Caliban is, nevertheless, essentially human," Wil-
son concluded that "We feel for the poor monster, so helplessly in the power
of the stern Prospero, as for some caged wild beast pining in cruel captivity,
and rejoice to think of him at last free to range in harmless mastery over his
island solitude." 39
Gradually Caliban the ape man evolved on stage. Lady Benson recalled in
her memoirs that in preparation for productions of The Tempest during the
1890s, F. R. Benson "spent many hours watching monkeys and baboons in the
zoo, in order to get the movements and postures in keeping with his 'make-
up.'" She described his costume as "half monkey, half coco-nut," and noted
that he "delighted in swarming up a tree on the stage and hanging from the
branches head downwards while he gibbered at 'Trinculo."' Benson also ini-
tiated the stage business (continued by Beerbohm Tree) of appearing with a
real fish in his mouth.40
Tyrone Power's costume for the 1897 Augustin Daly production was similarly
apish. The color sketch in Daly's souvenir album shows a human form covered
with brown fur. He wears a green tunic (shades of Tarzan) and sports metallic
scales around his calves. His long nails and hairy face bespeak his animal
qualities; his erect posture and expression suggest the human.41
Power's costume, according to a New York Times critic (7 April 1897) is
conventional, but his 'mask' and wig are "most unhappy, while his delivery
of the poetry lacks melody." To William Winter, reviewer for the New York
Daily Tribune (also 7 April 1897), Caliban represented a "brutish creature,. the
hideous, malignant clod of evil, in whom nevertheless, the germs of intelli-
gence, feeling and fanciful perception are beginning to stir." Winter praised
Power's "half-bestial, half-human aspect, the rude grisly strength, the intense,
sustained savage fury and the startling gleams of thought." However one judges
Power's performance, it is clear that he-and Daly-saw Caliban as a pre-
civilized missing link. Caliban the ape man had crossed the Atlantic.
Beerbohm Tree also stressed Caliban's humanity in his production of 1904.
In the preface to his acting edition, Tree argued that Caliban had a human shape
and that "in his love of music and his affinity with the unseen world, we discern
38 From a clipping inserted in Folger Tempest Promptbook No. 4. Source unknown.

39 Daniel Wilson, Caliban: The Missing Link (London: Macmillan and Co., 1873), p. 9.
4 Lady Benson, Mainly Players: Bensonian Memoirs (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1926),
p. 179.
41 Augustin Daly's Souvenir Album, Folger Art Volume b 31, includes color drawings for each
character in addition to photographs, playbills, and clippings from The Tempest's stage history.
in the soul which inhabits this elemental man the germs of a sense of beauty,
the dawn of art."42 Tree's costume consisted of fur and seaweed; significantly,
he also wore a necklace of shells and coral. When this Caliban hears the island's
music, he dances and tries to sing. At the beginning of Act III, scene ii, he
listens to the isle's sweet music while weaving a wreath of flowers for Stephano:
"Placing the wreath on his head, he looks at himself in the pool." The most
famous scene of this production was a final tableau that shows the Neapolitans
sailing home:
Caliban creeps from his cave and watches.... Caliban listens for the last time
to the sweet air [Ariel's song], then turns sadly in the direction of the departing
ship. The play is ended. As the curtain rises again, the ship is seen on the horizon,
Caliban stretching out his arms toward it in mute despair. The night falls, and
Caliban is left on the lonely rock. He is king once more.
(p. 63)
Tree noted that at this moment "we feel that from the conception of sorrow
in solitude may spring the birth of a higher civilization. "I Despite his primitive
origins, Tree's Caliban expressed deep human sensibilities and aspirations. Per-
haps this "deformed savage"-image of humanity's earliest ancestors-could
become civilized.
Belief in human progress also animated Caliban's portrayal in Percy MacKaye's
mammoth community masque, performed at Lewisohn Stadium in New York
Figure 3. A drawing from Augustine Daly's extra-illustrated Souvenir Album showing

Tyrone Power as Caliban at Daly's Theatre 6 April 1897. Privately printed for Mr. Daly in
New York (1897).
(1916). MacKaye wanted his Caliban to symbolize "that passionate child-cu-

rious part of us all [whether as individuals or as races], groveling close to his
aboriginal origins, yet groping up and staggering-with almost rhythmic falls
and back-slidings-toward that serener plane of pity and love, reason and dis-
ciplined will, where Miranda and Prospero commune with Ariel and his spirits.""4
42 Shakespeare's Comedy The Tempest as Arranged for the Stage by Herbert Beerbohm Tree
(London: J. Miles & Co., 1904), p. xi. The ensuing stage directions are cited from this edition.
13 Ibid., p. xi.
4 Percy MacKaye, Caliban by the Yellow Sands (Garden City: Doubleday, Page, and Co., 1916),
p. xv.
Caliban is aspiring humanity; his education consists of pageants depicting hu-

man civilization from ancient Egypt to the present. He is also entertained by
scenes from Shakespeare's plays, manufactured through Prospero's art. Al-
though a monster at first, MacKaye's Caliban learns by trial and error to reject
Lust, Death, and War. Finally, he learns how to love. Caliban illustrates
MacKaye's conviction that humanity had progressed from bestiality to civili-
zation.
The Darwinian Caliban persisted well into the twentieth century. Gordon
Crosse praised Robert Atkins' Caliban at the Old Vic (1920-25) because "He
showed with superlative art the malevolent brute nature with the dim, half-
formed, human intellect just breaking through. " G. Wilson Knight records
that he played Caliban at Toronto (1938) wearing heavy gray furs over a com-
-A
Figure 4. Charles A. Buchel's (fl. 1898-1906) charcoal

and wash drawing of Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Caliban.
From Daly's 1904 Acting Edition.
plete covering of green grease paint which blended "the slimy reptilian and
savagely human."46 In 1938 Robert Atkins again depicted Caliban, this time
as an aspiring and frustrated Neanderthal. English productions of 1940 and 1951
presented Caliban as a prehistoric figure, newly crawling out of the slime.47
The Darwinian Caliban demonstrated humanity's capacity for continued growth
and improvement. He sensed the island's beauty and slowly learned to sue for
grace. During World War II, however, Western civilization plunged back into
4 Gordon Crosse, Shakespearean Playgoing, 1890-1952 (London: A. R. Mowbray and Co.,

1953), p. 58.
4 G. Wilson Knight, Shakespearian Production (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968), p. 164.
4 See William Babula, Shakespeare in Production, 1935-1978: A Selective Catalogue (New
York: Garland, 1981), pp. 307-21.
the savagery from which it had supposedly emerged. The Tempest no longer
seemed an airy comedy; as the play darkened, Prospero became a cruel task-
master, Caliban his unwilling victim.
IV
After 1945 a growing number of literary critics began to view The Tempest
as Shakespeare's study of the colonists' adventures in the New World. If Pros-
pero's enchanted island was an image of America, then surely Caliban, the
island's indigenous inhabitant, must be Shakespeare's portrait of an American
Indian.48 In addition to Caliban's North American image, there emerged an
association between Shakespeare's monster and Third World native peoples-
of whatever continent or country-who had been colonized by Europeans and
were now throwing off their foreign governors and asserting independence. Like
Caliban (so the argument goes), most colonized peoples are disinherited, sub-
jugated, and exploited. Like him, they learned a conqueror's language and
values. Like him, they endured enslavement and contempt by European usur-
pers. Eventually, like Caliban, they rebelled.
Though it began as a source of discussion during the 1950s-with precursors
in the 1930s and '40s-Caliban's politicized image did not penetrate the theatre
until the late 1960s. By then Caliban had become a role often reserved for black
actors. In the all-white theatrical world of the 1940s and '50s, few parts were
open to members of minority groups. Caliban, an alien creature, could be played
by a black man; the strangeness, seemingly part of the costume, need not startle
the predominantly white audience. But once the tradition was established, the
role became politicized.
Canada Lee first broke the color barrier. In 1945 he portrayed Caliban in
Margaret Webster's New York Tempest. Lee wore a scaly costume and gro-
tesque mask, moved with an animal-like crouch, and emphasized Caliban's
monstrousness. The Saturday Review noted that "Canada Lee's Caliban is a
monster, fearsome, badgered, and pathetic. His only trouble is that he keeps
all of Caliban's poetry earth sprung, too."49 Lee's performance won modest
praise; the role of Caliban was now open, but the transformation was slow.
Earle Hyman assayed the part in 1960 at the American Shakespeare Festival
in Connecticut. Hyman too played up Caliban's monstrosity, wearing inflated
belly and legs and a grotesque headpiece. Judging from the photograph in
Shakespeare Quarterly, he looked anything but human.50 In 1962 James Earl
Jones used similar tactics, though his interpretation was more reptilian. Alice
Griffin described Jones's Caliban as "a savage, green-faced lizard darting his
red tongue in and out, lunging clumsily at what he wanted, and yelping when
he was denied it."'51
Jones's and Hyman's Calibans looked to the past. For the rest of the 1960s
and beyond, Caliban changed from monster to vehicle for contemporary ideas.
The following survey is admittedly cursory, but it does reflect the breadth of
Caliban's politicization during the 1960s and '70s.
48 See Charles Frey, "The Tempest and the New World," Shakespeare Quarterly, 30 (1979),
29-41.
49 Saturday Review, 10 February 1945, p. 29.
50 Claire McGlinchee, "Stratford, Connecticut, Shakespeare Festival, 1960," SQ, 11 (1960),
469-72.
51 Alice Griffin, "The New York Season 1961-1962," SQ, 13 (1962), 555.
Influenced by Jan Kott's harsh interpretation of the play as a study in viol-

ence, Peter Brook directed a production in 1963 at Stratford-upon-Avon in
which Roy Dotrice played Caliban as a Java man "who represented emergent
humanity."52 His phallic gestures conveyed primitive man's raw sexuality. Brook
continued this motif in 1968 with an experimental rendition of The Tempest at
the Round House in London. Brook used Caliban and his hypothetical mother
Sycorax in order to
represent those evil and violent forces that rise from man himself regardless of his
environment. The monster-mother is portrayed by an enormous woman able to
expand her face and body to still larger proportions. . . . Suddenly, she gives a
horrendous yell, and Caliban, with black sweater over his head, emerges from
between her legs: Evil is born.
As the action proceeded in Brook's version, Caliban raped Miranda, escaped

from Prospero, and took over the island. The experiment continued in a mime
of homosexual rape, Caliban on Prospero. And the play ended with broken
voices intoning Prospero's epilogue.53
. Brook's experiment clearly differed from Shakespeare's original, but it charted
the way to new interpretations of Caliban. Now the role represented power
more than subjugation. Henry Baker, for example, embodied Caliban's violence
in the 1970 Washington Summer Shakespeare production. Jeanne Addison Rob-
erts described Baker as "darkly beautiful in his glistening fish scales" and
"powerful and intractable from beginning to end." Baker never obeyed Ste-
phano's command to kiss his foot, never cowered, never uttered the final resolve
to be wise and sue for grace. To Roberts, "Baker's black skin, his somewhat
flawed enunciation, a minstrel-show mouth painted grotesquely in a greenish
face, and the use of the word 'slave' evoked instantly for the Washington au-
dience the American Negro. s Caliban was now a black militant, angry and
recalcitrant.
Jonathan Miller employed similar dynamics in his 1970 production at the
Mermaid Theatre. Miller's Caliban, Rudolph Walker, was an uneducated field
Negro "in contrast to Ariel, a competent, educated 'houseboy.' " Set in the
world of Cortez and Pizarro, Miller's version reflected the complex interrela-
tions of colonial masters and their subjugated natives.55
Variations on the colonial theme persisted through the 1970s. The New York
Shakespeare Festival presented Jaime Sanchez as a Puerto Rican Caliban in
1974,56 and in the same year Denis Quilley's Caliban at London's National
Theatre was likened by reviewers to James Fenimore Cooper's Chingachgook.
Quilley's Caliban was the noble savage, "with one side of him as a man, and
the other side half emerging from animality. "5 David Suchet's Caliban (Strat-
ford-upon-Avon, 1978) was a composite version of the Third World native, a
generalized conception of primitive man. John Velz reported that Suchet's Cal-
52 Robert Speaight, "Shakespeare in Britain," SQ, 14 (1963), 419-32.

53 Margaret Croyden, "Peter Brook's Tempest," The Drama Review, 3 (1968-69), 125-28.
54 Jeanne Addison Roberts, "The Washington Shakespeare Summer Festival, 1970," SQ, 21
(1970), 481-82.
55 Robert Speaight, "Shakespeare in Britain," SQ, 21 (1970), 439-40.
56 M. E. Comtois, "New York Shakespeare Festival, Lincoln Center, 1973-74," SQ, 25 (1974),
405-6.
57 Robert Speaight, "Shakespeare in Britain, 1974," SQ, 25 (1974), 389-94.
iban combined both West Indian and African.58 Another reviewer described
Suchet's Caliban as a "naked, dark-skinned primitive, with a bold head and
bloodshot eyes; . . . his exploitation was strongly emphasized."59
The climax of Caliban's politicization came, perhaps, during 1980-81, when
productions around the world emphasized what had become the standard inter-
pretation. In the popular imagination Caliban now represented any group that
felt itself oppressed. In New York, he appeared as a punk rocker, complete
with cropped hair, sunglasses, and Cockney accent.60 In Augsburg, Germany,
Caliban continued as a black slave who performed African dances and rituals
during the Stephano-Trinculo scenes.6" In Connecticut, Gerald Freedman viewed
Joe Cocks Studio
Figure 5. David Suchet as "third world" Caliban in

1978 RSC production of The Tempest. Reproduced
courtesy of Joe Cocks Studio, Stratford-upon-Avon.
Caliban as an aspect of Prospero' s character-the libido that cannot be con-

trolled. At the same time, he cast Joe Morton, a black actor, in the part and
had him sing his freedom catch to jazz tunes. Libido or no, this Caliban still
symbolized a repressed minority.62 The Globe Playhouse of Los Angeles, using
a cast of mixed nationalities, assigned Caliban to Mark Del-Castillo Morante,
who portrayed him as an American Indian. The Shakespeare Quarterly review
suggests that Del Castillo-Morante's interpretation reflected Montaigne's essay
and the historical background of the American Indian circa 1610.63
58 John Velz, "The Tempest," Cahiers Elisabethains, 14 (1978), 104-6.

59 Roger Warren, "A Year of Comedies: Stratford 1978," Shakespeare Survey, 21 (1979), 203.
6 Maurice Charney and Arthur Ganz, "Shakespeare in New York City," SQ, 33 (1982), 218-
22.
61 Werner Habicht, "Shakespeare in 'Provincial' West Germany," SQ, 31 (1980), 413-15.
62 For a description of Morton's performance, see Errol G. Hill, "Caliban and Ariel: A Study
in Black and White in American Productions of The Tempest from 1945-1981," Theatre History
Studies, 4 (1984), 1-10.
63 Joseph H. Stodder and Lillian Wilds, "Shakespeare in Southern California and Visalia," SQ,
31 (1980), 254-74.
While 1981 marks the apogee of Caliban's colonial image, it may also in-
dicate the shape of things to come. Joe Morton, the black actor who played
Caliban for Gerald Freedman in Connecticut, performed the role a second time
at The Mount, a summer theatre in Lenox, Massachusetts. This time, however,
the actor's blackness was insignificant. Peter Erickson describes the effect:
Caliban's costume consisted of a narrow, flared leather cape as a tail; a daggerless

scabbard dangling from his waist; leather gloves, which, blended in with his black-
ened skin, gave the illusion of enormous hands; a mask of light brown body paint
which ... left large circles around the eyes.... This Caliban was typically on
or near the ground-he walked bent over at the waist, torso swaying up and down
or shaking vigorously in an animal-like posture.... An assortment of convincing
groans and growls served as background, imbuing his language with striking vis-
ceral impact.64
No longer a political symbol, Caliban had returned to his monstrous origins.
Ralph Berry wrote in 1983 that "Nowadays, directors have gone off Caliban:
I suspect that they are bored with symbols of colonial oppression, and have
wrung all the changes they can on Red Indians and Rastafarians."65 Future
productions will test this observation, but it seemed apt enough during the
Trinity Repertory Company's 1982 production in Providence. To convey Cal-
iban's monstrousness, Adrian Hall strapped Richard Cavanaugh's feet to three
foot stools. As Caliban clomped across the stage, he was grotesque indeed.
Some in the audience worried more about how Caliban would fall to his hands
and knees than about his lines or characterization, but at least the portrayal was
original. This production suggests, however, that even with Caliban, there are
limits to innovations.
But rather than a forecast of things to come, the Trinity Theatre Caliban will
probably remain an aberration. For, as this survey suggests, when Caliban speaks
Shakespeare's original lines, he usually stirs an audience's imagination. Shake-
speare's monster continues to provoke horror at his appearance, awe at his
language, and laughter at his antics. He is in many respects society's image
of the "other"; but he is also, as Auden mused, that thing of darkness we must
acknowledge as our own. As we ourselves change, our perceptions of Caliban-
our own darkness-change. In the evolving image of Caliban we see a reflection
of Anglo-American intellectual history. But we also see our ever-changing selves.
64 Peter Erickson, "A Tempest at the Mount," SQ, 32 (1981), 188-90.

65 Ralph Berry, "Stratford Festival Canada, 1982," SQ, 34 (1983), 95.

Oxford University Press Shakespeare Quarterly

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Oxford University Press Shakespeare Quarterly

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Oxford University Press Shakespeare Quarterly

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

"Something Rich and Strange": Caliban's Theatrical Metamorphoses

Author(s): Virginia Mason Vaughan

VIRGINIA MASON VAUGHAN

S INCE CALIBAN'S FIRST APPEARANCE in 1611, Shakespeare's monster has

VIRGINIA M. VAUGHAN, Associate Professor and Chair of the English Depart-

"Monster" is Caliban's most frequent sobriquet. The term appears in

sodes-all in accord with contemporary notions of decorum. Dryden and Davenant

Folger Shakespeare Library

Summers, Shakespeare Adaptations (London: Jonathan Cape, 1922), pp. xvii-cvii.

Dryden's Caliban is just such a "salvage." As the play closes, he resolves to

and with 14 added. Part of Garrick's growing effort to restore Shakespeare's

Figure 2. An 1820 engraving by T. H. Rodd

18 Ibid., ii, 150.

. . . this roughness as well as awe, Emery most inevitably d

which held him in the thraldom of slavery."28 Bennett began th

Ryder's costume was later described in Thomas Barry's acting edition:

During the mid-nineteenth century, costumes such as John Ryder's empha-

38 From a clipping inserted in Folger Tempest Promptbook No. 4. Source unknown.

Folger Shakespeare Library

Figure 3. A drawing from Augustine Daly's extra-illustrated Souvenir Album showing

(1916). MacKaye wanted his Caliban to symbolize "that passionate child-cu-

Caliban is aspiring humanity; his education consists of pageants depicting hu-

Folger Shakespeare Library

Figure 4. Charles A. Buchel's (fl. 1898-1906) charcoal

4 Gordon Crosse, Shakespearean Playgoing, 1890-1952 (London: A. R. Mowbray and Co.,

Influenced by Jan Kott's harsh interpretation of the play as a study in viol-

As the action proceeded in Brook's version, Caliban raped Miranda, escaped

52 Robert Speaight, "Shakespeare in Britain," SQ, 14 (1963), 419-32.

Figure 5. David Suchet as "third world" Caliban in

Caliban as an aspect of Prospero' s character-the libido that cannot be con-

58 John Velz, "The Tempest," Cahiers Elisabethains, 14 (1978), 104-6.

Caliban's costume consisted of a narrow, flared leather cape as a tail; a daggerless

No longer a political symbol, Caliban had returned to his monstrous origins.

64 Peter Erickson, "A Tempest at the Mount," SQ, 32 (1981), 188-90.

You might also like