Rarer Action Reimagines "Tempest" in Verse, Larger-than-Life Illustrations

Anyone who is familiar with Charles and Mary Lamb’s 1807 classic Tales From Shakespeare will instantly appreciate the motive behind Peter and William Blagys’ new nine- by twelve-inch illustrated edition, The Rarer Action: Shakespeare’s The Tempest Retold. As those who tend to be skittish about reading Shakespeare’s plays will discover, this wry and charming retelling of the bard’s most popular romance is more zany and whimsical than Mary Lamb’s earnest prose adaptation of The Tempest (also adorned by vivid color plates).

Both works, however, share an important and practical aim—to recount the adventures of an exiled duke and his young daughter in an entertaining and accessible manner. The Rarer Action is a collaboration between two brothers—writer Peter W. Blagys and illustrator William A. Blagys—and it is a novel retelling of The Tempest in verse reminiscent of Dr. Seuss. The tale also takes poetic inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien and includes some well-chosen expressions from The Godfather.

In lieu of Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter, The Rarer Action employs anapestic tetrameter, a tri-syllabic meter with short and long stanzas that contain a consistent AA-BB-CC rhyme scheme. In the book’s 45-page large-format presentation, the authors succinctly narrate the densely plotted story of Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, who has been exiled on an uninhabited Mediterranean island with his daughter Miranda after he survives the ordeal of being stripped of his dukedom by his scheming brother Antonio.

Benign and benevolent, Prospero has acquired his “rough” magic from his vast library of books, and he is supported by Ariel, a mercurial spirit who manipulates people and events at the behest of his master. All powerful, the Duke orchestrates the attraction between his daughter and Ferdinand, the Neapolitan King Alonso’s son. Here’s a taste of how Peter Blagys introduces the adventures of the Duke and his daughter:

So old Prospero (that’s the Duke’s name) and Miranda,

His daughter (a wee tot), were left quite abandoned,

Alone and adrift out at sea in a boat,

Neither sail nor a rudder, just left there to float.

The tears of a father expecting the end,

But the smile of a child gave him strength until when

A small island they found, and it’s there that they’re stuck,

For now ten years plus two while Miranda grows up.

In Shakespeare’s tale, Prospero deliberately wrecks the ship of Antonio and his team of usurpers, forcing it to wash up on his deserted island in order to teach them a few lessons and force them to repent. The Rarer Action's title and epigraph are taken from Prospero’s reflection to Ariel (in Act 5) that the “rarer action is/In virtue than in vengeance,” spoken before the Duke decides to release his enemies from the spell he has put them under.

In his effort to make Shakespeare accessible, Peter Blagys takes pains to ensure that the play’s exploration of differing degrees of servitude comes through. His narrative cleverly outlines the ways in which Prospero exerts control over Ariel, the slave Caliban, and Miranda. Within this prose rendition, when Prospero allows Miranda to wed Ferdinand, and when he finally sets Ariel free, Shakespeare’s implicit contrasts between the states of freedom and servitude are retained.

One of the book’s most elegant features is the Epilogue, illustrated with a gorgeous scene from the Globe theatre, featuring groundlings who surround the stage and Shakespeare’s face superimposed within the tableau of seated patrons in the upper tiers. Here the authors wax eloquently about the end of Prospero’s tale and how the Duke might comport himself as he recites the play’s culminating scene to a live audience.

Through large-scale, highly stylized pen and ink drawings on nearly every page, William Blagys imagines the challenges facing Prospero using norms of realistic fantasy. This style offers elegant visual echoes of the play’s supernatural elements. The story contains at least a half-dozen illustrations that span both pages of the folio, and several full-page and three-quarter-page drawings. To ensure that readers remain mindful of Shakespeare’s verse, the authors have inserted short quotations from The Tempest underneath each drawing.

In the Afterword, Peter Blagys notes that the direct quotations from The Tempest are “our way of trying to bridge our interpretation to that original work.” Blagys also reminds the reader that “just as the English language on the whole is the richer for all the Shakespeare contained in it, so too is our text.” In this section, Blagys also takes the opportunity to remind his readers that his modern tale is best appreciated when read aloud. Of course, connoisseurs of Shakespeare also remind us that The Tempest should be savored through live performance rather than the labor of slow reading in solitude.

The Rarer Action’s rendition of a Shakespearean romance that was first performed in 1611 will serve any reader or playgoer who wants to brush up on the multiple plots of The Tempest for class or a stage performance. Teachers might also assign the book to students as a helpful preface to the play before they embark on a study of the Jacobean-era verse in class. And unlike other reimaginings of Shakespeare’s second-shortest play after The Comedy of Errors, this work devotes an equal number of pages to the story and the illustrations.

Since King Charles II reopened London’s theatres in 1660 following the restoration of the monarchy, impresarios have adapted Shakespeare onstage to suit the tastes of their own generations. Charles and Mary Lamb chose the prose form in Tales from Shakespeare to engage early nineteenth-century readers. With The Rarer Action: Shakespeare’s The Tempest Retold, Peter and William Blagys offer an adaptation that entertains through its original poetic form and stunning illustrations, while also meeting the needs of today’s readers by translating a difficult Shakespearean text into something accessible.

Currently, you can only purchase this book on the author's website here.