The Poetry and Politics of Aimé Césaire’s A Tempest
Signature Event Series TheatreJoin us for a performance and conversation in conjunction with The Dali Museum’s special exhibition Aimé Césaire: Poetry, Surrealism and Négritude.
Artistic Director Bob Devin Jones brings forth “The Poetry and Politics of Aimé Césaire’s A Tempest”, as seen through the lens of William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” on December 3, 2021 at 7:00 PM. Presented in partnership with The St. Petersburg Shakespeare Festival, this staged reading will pair selected passages from both works. There will also be a brief discussion of these works and their themes during the event.
“A Tempest” is a 1969 play by Aimé Césaire. It is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest from a postcolonial perspective, set on an island in the Caribbean. In this version, Césaire specifies that Prospero is a white master, while Ariel is a mulatto and Caliban is a black slave. These characters are the focus of the play as Césaire emphasized issues of race, power, decolonization, and anti-imperialism.
