Buntport Theater always moves beyond not only what anyone else has ever done, but also what they themselves have done before. With their new production, Wake, they present an alternate universe to Shakespeare’s Tempest through a collage of sounds, visuals, dialogue, and emotion, asking “What if the ship never came?”

Buntport creates a world where Prospero, Miranda, Caliban, and Ariel face interminable waiting, always looking for a ship, knowing Shakespeare’s lines to say when it arrives, rehearsing for a performance that never happens. In this universe, Prospero can control the weather, but cannot bring his enemies to him. In Caliban’s words, “the future holds nothing … just like the past.”

With a beautiful, functional, and integrated set, and creatively adapted electronic audio elements incorporated throughout, nothing in this story is as expected. Buntporters Erik Edborg, Erin Rollman, Brian Colonna, SamAnTha Schmitz, Hannah Duggan, and Evan Weissman, collaborating with composer Adam Stone, weave a tale growing out The Tempest, seizing particularly on one quote, creating an alternate view of that world that is both consistent with and completely unlike the world of Shakespeare’s play. The story is told nonlinearly, jumping between times, slowly revealing both what happened and why.

Ships leave a wake when they pass. With Wake, Buntport looks at the wake of a ship that never passes. The play is intriguing, the sounds are multi-dimensional, Shakespeare’s words are used and twisted, and the acting (particularly Rollman as Miranda) is phenomenal. This is challenging stuff, and at the end and probably long after, you’ll be thinking about what you have experienced. Lastly, after the show, stay and ask Stone to describe his amazing electronic creations — but don’t touch!

-Craig Williamson, February 7, 2013, North Denver Tribune