Tempest Lite

Shakespeare can be easy without being schlocky.

- SARA HOLDREN

THIS IS NOT a review of The Tempest.

Well, no, it is. It can't help it. But I'd like to take an airy spirit's-eye view for a moment and, before boarding the king's ship, pause. Because to talk about this Tempest, one must first talk about the larger project to which it is in service. And the play is-despite the ebullient production's focus on themes of breaking free from various bonds-in service. Shakespeare's text, arguably the playwright's only original story, is a public-domain scaffold on which to build the annual culmination of the Public Works program.

This isn't a judgment; it's simply a fact. Public Works-which Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis consistently describes in his onstage preshow announcements as "the most important program we do"-is just over a decade old and as exuberant and song-and-dance filled as ever. Founded in 2012 by director Lear de Bessonet and now helmed by Tempest director Laurie Woolery, Public Works isn't just a show: It's a massive community-centered arts initiative. It combines year-round workshops and classes with potlucks and partnerships with eight different organizations across New York, from a domestic-workers union to a foundation that works to build supportive communities for military vets. The founding principle of Public Works is that artistry isn't the reserve of a talented few but a universal birthright. If an artistic endeavor should be assessed solely by the purity of its intentions-or, even more meaningfully, on the probable net good it's putting into the world-then Public Works productions probably shouldn't be critiqued at all. The project's utopian bona fides are unassailable.