Fringe Review: Kaliban escapes The Tempest for a new life

Edmonton Journal

16 hours ago

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Stage 7, Yardbird Suite, 11 Tommy Banks Way
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What happens to our favourite characters after the play is over? More importantly, what happens to the lesser-known, obscure characters after the curtain drops?
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Kaliban, for those who don't remember, was the half-man, half-beast who inhabited the island of Shakespeare's The Tempest. He becomes the servant of Prospero, former Duke of Milan, though is abandoned on the island when Prosperous escapes and regains his title. And he's getting his own story told, finally, in Kaliban.
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Kaliban wasn't murdered, wasn't left on a sinking island, wasn't abandoned to some horrible fate; surely he survived and possibly thrived? Andrew Hamilton's show Kaliban imagines the life of the brute after the events of The Tempest, our protagonist striving for a more fulfilling life for himself.
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Hamilton does most of the show in iambic pentameter, or at least a close approximation, bringing life to an otherwise flat character. He dovetails into regular English when he's making a specific point or a strong argument, but the majority is the Shakespearean special.
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The iambic is the most interesting part of the show, providing a connection back to the original material. We are getting to see a side character blossom into his own … as a bloodthirsty warrior? Find a job you'll love and you'll never work a day in your life.