Title: Hag-Seed
Author: Margaret
Atwood
Publisher:
Hogarth Shakespeare
Publish
date: 2016
ISBN: 978
178 1090220
‘’’The last three words in the play are ‘set me
free,’” says Felix. “You don’t say ‘set me free’ unless you’re not free.
Prospero is a prisoner inside the play he himself has composed. There you have
it: the ninth prison is the pay itself.’”
__________________________________________________
Felix, the
Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival, has taken his eye off the
ball. He’s booted out of his job by usurping Tony and spends the next twelve
years living as a hermit. Life and characters consciously mirror the story of ‘The
Tempest’ as he foments a slow, artistic revenge.
How Atwood
manages to create so much reader sympathy for a demented, self-centered, secretive,
manipulative protagonist is a mystery. It happens, though. The text flows
quickly as chilled white wine on a summer evening. You can take as much notice
of the additional clever little mirrors and doubles of ‘The Tempest’ as you
like, for there are many: the main and necessary ones are spelled out clearly.
The appositeness of this play being performed in a prison is made ample use of.
If you like the play, you’ll certainly gain more of an understanding of it as
well by the time you’ve finished the book.
Perhaps the
reader empathy is generated through the extensive character development. Felix
peels back onion layer after layer of personal anguish. We see his character
change and reflect on itself partly through the peculiar hallucination he
nurtures, of his long-dead daughter Miranda. Spoilers would be a terrible thing
but the personal logic he finally applies to this is both inspired and frankly
haunting. The characters of the inmates (known only by their stage-names: Bent
Pencil, Snake-eye, etc.) also develop and meld with the characters of their
alter-ego play characters, pulling the play along into their unique
interpretations. It’s interesting that Atwood devotes a considerable portion to
after-play wrap-up, where Felix asks the actors to talk about what they think ‘happened
next’ to the play’s protagonists. It’s an ingenious way of extending reader
involvement and directly inviting the reader to continue the lives on the page:
to free them from their paper prison and give airy nothing a local habitation
and a name.
I’d
thoroughly recommend this book. What can one say but ‘delight’ when the author
lists The Shakespeare Insult Generator as
a major help in creation? Enjoy. A full five hoofs up.
