Let’s Dive Into The Under Presents: Tempest | Pt. 3

Or: A Much Too Granular Breakdown of My Experience

This is Part 3 of 3 in my Tempest write-up. In Part 1 I went over why this show is so important. Part 2 tackles my biased hang-ups. This is my breakdown of what I saw as well as what I’ve heard others saw.

PLEASE DON’T READ UNTIL YOU’VE SEEN TEMPEST FOR YOURSELF

What exactly did I see?

I know everyone had a slightly different experience, so here I’ll lay out my opening night journey in a super dry and matter-of-fact fashion.

1. Bought my ticket to the very first public performance in-app at the newly-visible Decameron Theater within ten minutes of the initial announcement on July 6th.
2. Checked Oculus Quest July 9th at 6 PM EST, an hour before showtime, to see if there was an update for The Under Presents app — nope.
3. Opened The Under Presents and arrived outside the theater a few minutes before 7 PM EST.
4. Saw the countdown on the inside of my mask.
5. Saw the countdown hit 0:00. Nothing happened. Tried to go into the theater doors. Still nothing. Walked/scrunched around for a bit.
6. Suddenly magically teleported into the Tempest lobby.
7. Alone in the space, did some exploring. Cast some spells. Looked through the jugs and saw two variations on the same world I was in. Heard punny announcements. Broke stuff. Repaired stuff. Learned that repairing a portal jug turns it back into a regular jug. Didn’t solve the puzzle.
8. After about 30 minutes I decided there may be a glitch. At one point what looked like an usher appeared in the center of the room in a red suit and gestured like he was trying to talk but I didn’t hear anything.
9. A DM I sent to the @tenderclaws Twitter got answered. Turns out The Under Presents needs an update and the person I’m messaging on Twitter actually tried to tell me this as that in-game usher!
10. He gives me a free credit that instantly appears for me in VR at the Box Office so I grab a ticket to the 8 PM show.
11. I still don’t see the update for The Under Presents. Restart the Quest headset and, aha, there it is.
12. This time at 8 PM I’m almost instantly teleported into the lobby and there’s now seven of us in here. Right off the bat someone points at my mask and I notice that I suddenly have a swirly storm mask. Hm, maybe this is something my 7 PM ticket gave me?
13. Tons of crazy spells by this particularly advanced group (I can tell because 5 out of 6 of them have upgraded their masks — something not often done by a casual player).
14. After 7 minutes in the lobby the doors opened, the lights faded and we all appeared at…
15. A campfire! At dusk! In the backyard of a two story house on a cliff, overlooking a very smoggy city.
16. Our host looks like a hippie theatre professor from the 60s.
17. Unfortunately we can’t hear her (signified by snapping our fingers near our ears and shaking our heads). She exits and comes back several times. We basically throw everything possible into the fire or off the cliff. After 6 minutes we can hear her. She’s so so happy. Big group hug (first of many).
18. She also introduces herself as an actor who was cast in The Tempest as Prospera. She’s Genevieve Flati whose voice I recognize from the Voices of VR Podcast. She asks us if we want to do some acting so we can all learn what this show is about.
19. Prospera casts 4 of us as sailors and immediately teleports us all up into the balcony of the house complete with sailor hats.
20. We run back and forth like we’re in a storm while the remaining 3 stay at the bottom and swing lights around to help with the effect. Prospera narrates the scene.
21. She gathers us around the campfire again and we congratulate our cast and our tech crew with copious finger snaps.
22. Now she casts us all as her spirits and says we’re going to do some magic (and learn about Shakeeespppeare (she sings a lot, Jean-Ralphio style))
23. Prospera drops a ton of sticks into the fire. Like thirty. They don’t burn. We then do the ‘repair’ spell (taught during the intro section of The Under, which by the way is now free!) and the sticks turn into a small stick boat. It floats above the fire like it’s on tumultuous seas. OoooOoooo.
24. She explains that as the magician Prospera, she has asked Ariel the spirit (aka sprite) to create a giant storm to take out her enemies. This is the same boat that we were just pretending to be on with the house balcony.
25. Suddenly we’re in a fully-realized storm with a real ship (though it’s still the same scale-model size) in the middle of the ocean as lightning strikes the ship and lights it on fire. Prospera quotes actual Shakespeare’s Tempest here. The part about “Hell is empty. And all the devils are here.” Rad.
26. Now we’re all under the water of the boat (now full scale) and our host becomes a giant Ariel, singing hauntingly with some vocal effects. There’s also music for the first time. Mm! Goosebumps here.
27. Suddenly that all ends and we’re in a stone building with a pool in the center and various other areas, including a basement, a second floor, and an outside. Likely Prospera’s cell/home, though it’s never identified as such.
28. Our host gives us about a minute to explore. I go everywhere and find swords, coins, books, paper, a staff, a hat, a shoe, a ship steering wheel, etc. I use my mask flame to light up the basement.
29. She then gathers us around and tells us about being the Duke of Milan and how her brother Antonio betrayed her. She asks everyone to go to her left who has ever been betrayed by a family member. There’s 2. The other 5 of us are on the right and we get taunted for our “perfect lives.”
30. She talks about how she (as Prospera) read too many books and that made Antonio want to betray her. Then she said “if you…oh wait, be right back, be right back, go explore.”
31. Then she was gone for a couple minutes and then continued where she left off. She asked those of us who read books / play games / relax a lot to go to her left and anyone who always focuses and puts work first to go to her right. All of us went to the left.
32. She talks about being exiled and how her and her daughter Miranda and her had to get out of Milan.
33. We appear back at the campfire with the ship above the fire again. We all put our hands in and agree to “leave our shame there.”
34. Then for a second we’re back looking at the boat on the water then we’re underwater for a second and then back in Prospera’s housey place. She talks about how we can never leave our shame behind and how it flashed before our eyes. Then she makes the pool in front of us do a swirly swool (like the mask I’m wearing) and it becomes a portal (jug-style) to a “rotten carcass of a boat” with her and Miranda on it.
35. She says “let’s get out of here, I’m too sad,” and we appear back at the campfire. She brought us here to eat some marshmallows. We have marshmallows on sticks and then roast and eat them. Then she says we need to sing and do a hokey pokey sort of dance with the marshmallows or the Shakespeare will not continue. We do the hokey pokey marshmallow dance.
36. Next, we appear in a big clearing and she tells us to bring her all of the wood. We do this for 2 minutes.
37. We then all hold hands (as best we can; you can’t actually grab someone’s hand). She says she needs someone to play her daughter Miranda (Miranda is given a flower crown) and someone to play the king’s son, Ferdinand (he’s given a cowboy hat). The rest of us, as her spirits, are given “servant ruffles” around our necks.
38. I become one of Ferdinand’s buddies and we’re told to go lift the wood like we’re weightlifting. And then Ferdinand sees Miranda and they play out their little rom-com, including Prospera challenging Ferdinand to fisticuffs (in the play this is all orchestrated by Prospero’s plotting)
39. She then talks about how Ferdinand got bored with Miranda and felt like he didn’t earn her “because in Shakespeare’s time, women were prizes I guess!”
40. Prospera says “this was some grade A rom-com right here. Like Stephanie Meyers. But now let’s go do some adventure stuff!” and we run over to another part of the level with an old boat (I think the one her and Miranda were in? How did it get here?).
41. Prospera now casts us all as the dukes, her enemies who betrayed her. Then she tells us to go eat a banquet and she’ll see us later.
42. We appear out in a new field with a big banquet table. We chow down like a bunch of gluttons, throw food, break stuff, gorge ourselves silly. The sky grows dark. Wind blows leaves.
43. Ariel appears as a terrifying spectacle in the sky, her body portaling the view of our boat sinking. She gives the “you are three men of sin” monologue, though of course leaves out the three since there are seven of us.
44. Some of us draw swords to attack her, but they fall to the ground and cannot be picked up again. The line “Your swords are now too massy for your strengths” is spoken as “Your swords are now too heavy to lift.”
45. Still as this specter, our host says “hey guys it’s me! Are you having fun? Did you eat any good food? Which one is the best food?” and riffs on some of what’s there. She then says we should go do something else and we appear:
46. Ah, at an actual The Under location. There’s some trees and a gazebo and an arcade. Like the task in The Under, we’re told to clean up and help the trees heal. We do that. We’re having a wedding, after all.
47. Delightfully flutey wedding music starts playing. We go to the gazebo. I’m cast as the rabbi marrying Ferdinand and Miranda since I’m already standing in the right spot, while everyone else is spirits (e.g. Juno, Artemis, etc) giving them blessings.
48. Our host says she’s gonna do this part like Hamilton: “Earth’s increase, foison plenty, Barns and garners, never empty” etc. etc. We lose her audio for about ten seconds here then she’s back.
49. We all receive as a wedding gift the swirly Tempest mask that I already had on. It’s new for everyone else there.
50. As we begin to say goodbye, one of the other audience members does a quick spell to set off fireworks. Our host is very impressed!
51. We’re all back at the campfire, a storm gathers around us. The house disintegrates in spectacular fashion.
52. We all hold hands then have a dance party. Every so often the world goes super psychedelic.
53. Our host asks if we’ll miss her and gives us parts of the “we are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep” speech.
54. A slow version of The Under theme song (?) plays as we say our goodbyes.
55. We go “1, 2, 3 Shakespeare!” over the fire and are psychedelically hyperspace teleported to a black and white version of the lobby, which fades to color.
56. We can leave whenever we want out the exit doors. Most do immediately since we’re actually roped off from exploring the lobby to the extent we could at the beginning. Note this entire live experience with the host (once we could hear her) lasted 32 minutes.
57. I was deposited alone back outside the theater… at which point I tried to go into The Under to see if I could find other Tempest viewers (based on the mask), but I found myself having to repeat the intro with the MC so decided to call it a night.

Some favorite moments from my show. Also did you notice my write-up accidentally changed tenses? Whoops. Haven’t done much writing in quarantine.

And there we are. Technical issues aside, did that all sound familiar, or was your experience super duper different? Some variables I’ve heard about so far based on discussions with other attendees:

• Having the set-up be less “I’m going to tell you a story” and more “hey I was just now cast into a play based on The Tempest and will you help me get in the right headspace to understand it better?”
• High-energy action vs subtler embodiment of key dialogue.
• The balcony scene being a ‘warm-up exercise’ before the ‘main event.’
• Being told to bring artifacts to Prospero who then comments on them in relation to the story.
• Directly calling out elements of The Tempest that should be changed/reimagined for this show.
• Cat humor (by the hosts who own cats).
• Breathing/visualization/meditation exercises to help change scenes or conjure costumes.
• Question to the audience: “Have you ever made a decision that made other people suffer?”
• Variations in how much the host claims to know about The Tempest.
• Variations in actual direct quoting of the The Tempest or by-name casting of actual characters beyond Miranda and Ferdinand.
• Variations in the amount of hugging/hand holding/direct touching.
• Prospero leaving to go to the bathroom, complete with sound fx and toilet paper.
• Coleman (of The Under/Timeboat fame) making an appearance at the end
• Other characters from The Under showing up

Will update this as I hear of more variation!