Hag-Seed

So disappointing. Too too on the nose, with characters so obviously slotted into the roles from the Tempest. Worse, it was done so deliberately by our protagonist, who not only intentionally recreated The Tempest, but explained that he was doing so, both via internal monologue and conversations with other characters. I found him to be a very thin character, only interesting because of his relationship with his daughter, and he was well-rounded compared to everyone else in the book.

The dialogue was nearly laughable, and the descriptions of the Stratford Festival, as well as the inner workings of a prison, made me squirm. The latter especially seemed too unrealistic to be believed. And I'm willing to let slide such things as love at first sight in olde-timey plays with tight time constraints, but in this case it just felt too lazy, tacked-on, and purposeless.

I understand that the idea is to follow the plot and themes of the original play, but it just seemed that no effort was made at all in this case. It felt more like a fragmented essay about the play than a re-imagining.