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Steampunk Comes to Rockwall

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Rockwall High School Theatre

Methinks the Bard would have liked steampunk. Of course, he would have had to have lived about 300 years later than he did, and harbor a fascination for steam powered machines and science fiction.

You may not know the term "steampunk". However, you probably are familiar with the works of HG. Wells and Jules Verne, with their futuristic visions of machines of brass and iron, usually steam powered, capable of taking travellers underwater, to the moon, or back and forth through time. Steam, being the most powerful force harnessed by humans at the time, was the basis of the kind of speculation that quantum physics, nuclear power, or nanotechnology evokes today, with their promise of endless possibilities.

Shakespeare himself often took his audiences into fantastical realms, and perhaps none of his works exemplifies this more than "The Tempest", a play which relies heavily on the concepts of weather and mind control, a possible visitor from the moon, a winged bird-woman, mixed with plenty of intrigue and romance. Not a bad basis for a ripping-good sci-fi story, right?

Bring the story forward a few centuries and add cogs, gears, brass pipes and steam - lots of steam - and you get an inkling of what the Rockwall High School Theatre group has in store for their production of the Tempest this weekend. Said director Matt Mitchell, "The story lends itself well to the genre, with its themes of nature versus machine. The play has actually been used as the basis for a science fiction movie, Forbidden Planet, so we felt that it would work well in the kind of retro-futuristic motif that steampunk represents."

Rockwall High School Theatre presents The Tempest - steampunk style - this weekend at the Main Stage Theatre on the High School campus. See the entertainment page for showtimes.

Posted Monday, November 15, 2010 Bob Lewis