Eventually he takes a job teaching Literacy Through Theatre to the prisoners at the nearby Burgess Correctional Institution, and is making a modest success of it when an auspicious star places his enemies within his reach. With the help of their own interpretations, digital effects, and the talents of a professional actress and choreographer, the Burgess Correctional Players prepare to video their Tempest. Not surprisingly, they view Caliban as the character with whom they have the most in common. However, Felix has another twist in mind, and his enemies are about to find themselves taking part in an interactive and illusion-ridden version of The Tempest that will change their lives forever. But how will Felix deal with his invisible Miranda’s decision to take a part in the play?
So I just discovered these Hogarth Shakespeare books and I'm so upset that I didn't know about them earlier! Basically, authors from today rewrite Shakespeare plays, adding their own twists and delightfulness. It's like a movie remake, but better because it makes sense.
Margaret Atwood had the chance to rewrite The Tempest, which is one of my favorite plays because, really, of the magic. Also, I used to be big time into revenge in written works {used to be? I still am, what the heck}, so The Tempest had always been my kind of play {also Titus Andronicus, but that's not something you can say without getting one of those looks}. When I read the description {and the author!}, I knew I had to have it. I requested on NetGalley and didn't really think I'd get it, so imagine my surprise when the email popped up one morning and almost fell out of bed.
Poor Felix had a good life going for him, with the exception of his deceased wife and child, when he is ousted from his position as artistic director. His plays are amazing: Shakespeare retold through the eyes of an excited fan. After a few years of stewing angrily, he decides to get a job, to remake his life, and he starts at the jail, where they need a teacher to educate the inmates. Felix decides that this is the perfect opportunity for him to build up his life again and to put on his amazing plays with a brand new audience that seems to fall in love with him.
Oh, and please the ghost of his dead daughter who pops up out of nowhere and follows him around most of the day. It just wouldn't be Shakespeare without a ghost, right?
I don't think I have enough words to say how wonderful this book is. Atwood writes with the most delicious language and she brings Felix and his cast of characters to life. The inmates are sweet and tough and hard and scary and marshmallows, and they all adore Felix because he's given them a new outlook on life, something to work toward while they sit in prison. Felix does not sit in his hovel, dreaming of revenge and wringing his hands together, but dedicates his life to these inmates, all under a pseudonym. But my favorite part is Miranda, his daughter that he lost when she was three years old. She comes back to his life,a coping mechanism for him, and he lets her grow, although she is not the teenager that should be. She's perfect, too perfect, and that's why he gives her a little more room to grow and becomes surprised when she wants in the play.
Having never lost a child, I can't understand what exactly Felix went through, but I can understand the wanting to bring someone back. It's painful watching him live his life as Mr. Duke and teaching these inmates, all the while thinking about his ghost daughter sitting at home, waiting for him, never truly growing up. But it was wonderful watching him beginning to understand that sometimes family is what you make of it and that these inmates, as deranged as some of them are, loved him with a fatherly passion and he, in turn, loved them back.
Like, it's Margaret Atwood rewriting Shakespeare. That could have been my entire review and I'm hoping that you would have run out to grab it. It comes out Tuesday, so grab some money and start lining up at your local bookstore!
Don't do that. Just go buy it that day.
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