There are many different things that as a director, I would need to say to ‘Caliban’ to make the play run smoothly In my opinion the first bit of action that I would give to Caliban is as follows: when Stephano says to him on line three “servant monster, drink to me”, Caliban should hesitate a bit, then shove the bottle to his mouth and gulp the alcohol down fast in order to get it down faster. Caliban is the victim of Stephano and Trinculo; they are forcing him to drink. It is not given to him as a form of relaxation; rather it is used in order to please the ones who are feeding him.
The next piece is when Stephano says on line six, “thy eyes are almost set in thy head”. Caliban should open his eyes wide and act drowsy and partly oblivious to the surroundings around him. He should also have a very glazed expression on his face after drinking. In the next line of Stephano (line eleven), when he says, “my man-monster hath drowned his tongue in sack” Caliban should hang his tongue out of his mouth as if it is numb and he could possibly drool a bit before repositioning it back in his mouth.
The next piece of performance that Caliban is to do is on line twenty-one when he says, “let me lick thy shoe. I’ll not serve him. He is not valiant!” Here Caliban should literally kneel before Stephano and he should try to lick his shoe. Then stand up straightaway, jab his finger at Trinculo repeatedly whilst saying he is not valiant. (He can possibly, behind Stephano’s back, make some actions to make Trinculo believe he will kill him). When Caliban then says in line twenty-eight, “Lo, how he mocks me!” Caliban should speak in a shrill voice to show that he is afraid. He could also stagger over to the corner of the stage and cower to add to this impression.
As Caliban says in the next line, “bite him to death, I prithee”, Caliban should imitate biting someone. He should look angrily at Trinculo and pleadingly at Stephano as if to say, “Please let me kill Trinculo”. In line thirty-six, Stephano is agreeing to listen to Caliban repeat his request again. He says, “Kneel and repeat it…” As soon as Stephano says this, Caliban should straight away kneel as if about to take an oath and he should clear his voice to enable himself to speak clearly on the next line. Whenever Ariel says, “thou liest”, Caliban should twist round angrily at Trinculo and lift a hand up in a fist in order to threaten him.
The next part of stage directions is when Caliban says, “Thou shalt be lord of it, and I’ll serve thee”. When Caliban says this he should bow down to Stephano and look at him in a respecting way! Also in line fifty-seven, where Caliban is thinking about violent fantasies he says, “Where thou may’st knock a nail into his head”, Caliban should lift his hand up as if to stab someone or to literally knock a nail into their head. Another performance line is when Caliban laughs “ha, ha, ha”. He should show exaggerated laughing, looking extremely happy with himself. He could also bang his hand on the floor as a result of laughing.
Caliban has one of his longest speeches in the entire play now and in this speech there are a couple of different actions that he can do in it. First, when he is saying all the things he can do to Prospero to kill him he should actions to correspond to each of those murderous actions that he describes. Secondly, when he describing about Miranda, he should put his hand on his heart and put on puppy-dog eyes as if to describe just how pretty she actually is. Later on in line one hundred and seven he says, “Wilt thou destroy him then?” Caliban could jump up and down in excitement and start just jabbering to himself randomly.
In line one hundred and fifteen when Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo are singing “flout them and scout him”, Caliban should dance in excitement and when he finishes he should stagger away from them fold his arms and say in a moody voice and a cross face “That’s not the tune!” The next action Caliban is to do is when he says on line one hundred and twenty eight “Be not afeared. The isle is full of noises” He should touch his ear as if trying to hear the voices now as well.
Act 4 Scene 1 For the first part of Act Four there are no actions of Caliban as he is not talking, it is just Ariel telling prospero everything he has heard. At the stage directions “Enter Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo all wet”. Caliban is to stagger in, draping his arms down, shivering. He is to look horrified and disgusted. By walking in like this, it shows how drunk they are and how they are absolutely horrified about what’s happened.
When Caliban says in line one hundred and ninety four “Pray you, tread softly” Caliban should make exaggerated tip toeing footsteps and whisper everything he says. Whenever Stephano and Trinculo take clothes off the clothesline in the scene, Caliban should take it off them and tell them to hurry up. These are most of the things that I as a director would say to the actor playing Caliban in these two scenes and hopefully my play would be a very good one.
