Powerful "Sycorax" Speaks to Racism

Demene E. Hall in Sycorax (Tom Chargin)

Sycorax

Snowflake Avalanche

(at 18th & Union)

Through October 14, 2017

There’s a Shakespeare play, The Tempest, that many people are familiar with. It has several “magical” characters, one of which is Caliban, who is described as a monster, and the offspring of a witch named Sycorax.

Prospero, a noble deliberately shipwrecked (by rivals) on an island with his daughter says Caliban is “a freckled whelp hag-born--not honour'd with a human shape” and calls him filth and a slave. When Prospero first came to the island, Caliban helped him learn how to survive there, but years later, Prospero treats him terribly.

Playwright Y York conceived of a new way of looking at Caliban through his mother. What if, she considered, Sycorax was dark-skinned? What if Caliban was also dark-skinned? What if their lives were considered immaterial and the reasons they are labeled a “witch” and a “monster” were because of skin color and not because of actual inhuman features?

York has crafted a one-woman play, called Sycorax, starring talented actor Demene E. Hall, to explore this concept. She has placed Sycorax, as a ghost, on the island where The Tempest takes place.

Sycorax is furious with Prospero, who has killed her son, Caliban, and finds a magic cloak perhaps belonging to the sprite Ariel, but is prevented from using it to visit her wrath on the ship Prospero is sailing away on. So, she appeals to the Gods to allow her to use the cloak.

She perceives that the Gods may not know her story and that telling it might persuade them that she deserves her chance to use Ariel’s cloak. So she begins to tell a harrowing tale of betrayal, mistreatment, and marginalization, none of which, she explains, were due to anything she had actually done, herself. All of it was visited on her because she was dark-skinned.

Hall gives a powerful, classical performance. She speaks as if her lines were written in classic Shakespearean form, though the language by York is more accessible. Hall is a powerful actor with mesmerizing demeanor. Using a tattered, but also majestic costume from Frances Kenny and suggestive native face markings, Hall, as directed by Mark Lutwak, credibly portrays a woman who may not have set out to be a witch, but has embraced any power she could claim.

The unfolding of her tale also changes her, maybe in the speaking of it, as she realizes that Caliban, now dead, might show up on the island as a ghost, himself. This realization creates a key shift in her perceptions, which also changes her request to the Gods.

The play asks questions about love and forgiveness and power and privilege. In a short hour, many of these themes are explored in interesting ways.

You only have a couple more performances to see this worthy piece. It may well be produced in a lot of other English-speaking theaters, and you get a chance to see it now, before it’s “done everywhere.”

For more information, go to https://18thandunion.org/sycorax or call (206) 937-6499.