We performed this adaptation on April 23rd 2023 at the Craiova International Shakespeare Festival as part of their celebration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s first folio. We then performed it the week later in Sofia Bulgaria at the New Bulgarian University.

I created this production with the Pericles company whilst we were touring our double Pericles shows around the UK and Europe in Spring 2023. During one of Pericles performances for Ukrainian refugee children in Sofia Bulgaria we were playing ‘The Storm Game’ — where Thaisa and Pericles lose each other.

In response to the solemn mood of the game a young boy picked up a singing bowl and played it in slow chimes, walking anti-clockwise around the outside of the circle as if he were a priest offering solemn last rites on the occasion of great sadness. It was one of the most instinctive and honest reactions to one of my games that I had ever witnessed, and months later it inspired me when I was adapting The Tempest for the company.

The Tempest from Marin Sorescu Theatre National Craiova Romania (2023) — Youtube Channel

I used the boy’s ‘circle of sadness’ to express Antonio’s penance. For the duration of the show, Antonio walked in circles painfully slowly — just as the boy had done — around and around the perimeter of the space, playing with the same singing bowl. It felt as if he were on the edge of the island, on the edge of his nerves, and at the edge of grief.

I would never have come up with this if I hadn’t experienced the young boy’s inventiveness.