A man lies unconscious in a hospital bed – tubes, bleeping machines. A nurse enters, waits.
Relatives gather round the bed, silent and solemn. One of them nods to the nurse, who reaches out to the machines.
The flatline noise we all know from hospital dramas. The relatives hold each other. And then…
A deafening clap of thunder – the man sits up. Bed, relatives, machines fly hither and thither as we are flung onto the deck of a ship heaving in a storm. Ropes fall from above. Relatives become sailors as the man fights to free himself from the tubes and the bed. In the midst of the swirling action, he heaves for breath, watching exultant at the chaos and confusion surrounding him.
This is THE TEMPEST, conceived as the final dream of a man raging against the dying of the light – a passage from furious assertion of the ego to peaceful acceptance of death. A final tempest of the mind.
A TEMPEST for the age of Covid-19.
Showing: 4pm on 3rd July at Colet House, London.
Raging Calm Productions 