Shakespeare’s Tempests and the Sea Venture
The real events that inspired Shakespeare’s shipwreck in THE TEMPEST. Plus: a Shakespeare quiz.
Originally produced during Lantern Theater Company’s 2017/18 season and streaming May 4–30, 2021, as part of our new Plays from the Lantern Archives series, The Tempest tells a fantastical story of spirits, power struggles, and survival at the mercy of the high seas. While Shakespeare invented the plot, the play’s otherworldly inhabitants and plot turns were inspired by the time and the news of the day. The Tempest was born from the spirit of exploration gripping England at the beginning of the 17th century, and by a very real shipwreck that fascinated London at the time.
Great Britain established its first successful colony in the New World at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, almost 20 years after the colonists at Roanoke Island vanished, never to be found. The new Jamestown colony looked like it might meet a similar fate: the colony was struggling, the inhabitants were starving, and failure seemed imminent. In 1609, a fleet of nine ships from England set sail for Virginia, determined to save the floundering colony. The ships were loaded up with supplies, livestock, and new colonists seduced by the promise of adventure in a new land. This fleet was led by its flagship: the Sea Venture.
The rescue mission did not go as planned. While crossing the Atlantic, the convoy encountered a hurricane, fighting through 30-foot waves. One ship sank, and everyone on board was lost. Seven other ships made it through the storm and arrived safely in Jamestown. The Sea Venture, though, met a stranger fate: after the damaged ship floated three days at sea, the captain chose to run the ship aground on an uninhabited island in the Bermudas to avoid sinking in the middle of the Atlantic.
The daring choice to wreck the ship onshore meant that all 150 of the crew and passengers survived, finding themselves castaways on the uninhabited island. This was not just any island, though; not unlike Shakespeare’s, this one was called “the Ile of Divels” and rumored to be “a most prodigious and enchanted place.” Unlike Shakespeare’s island, the Sea Venture’s castaways found neither Ariels nor Calibans. Instead, they were greeted with pleasant weather, no dangerous wildlife, and an abundance of food to add to the ship’s supplies. Split into two main groups — as the castaways in the play are — the would-be colonists lived well on the island for ten months while building new boats out of materials salvaged from the Sea Venture. Life in Bermuda was so pleasant, in fact, that when the two refashioned boats were ready, there was a small mutiny of people who did not want to leave — a rebellion perhaps acknowledged by the power struggles in Shakespeare’s play.
When the colonists escaped the island and arrived at Jamestown, several of them put their experiences on paper and sent them to England, including Silvester Jourdain and Robert Rich. The most famous and vivid account was by William Strachey, whose tale of the terrifying storm and life as a castaway reached London in 1610 — the same year Shakespeare wrote The Tempest and created an enchanted island not in the New World, but in the Mediterranean Sea. Shakespeare created a world of his own, built upon the waves Strachey and his fellow castaways endured.
Tempests appear again and again in Shakespeare’s writing. How well do you know your Shakespearean storms? Take our quiz to find out!
Related reading: British Exploration and The Tempest — Shakespeare created his enchanted island during a time of exploration and discovery for Great Britain.
The Tempest is part of Plays from the Lantern Archives, a new series celebrating some of the finest productions from recent Lantern seasons, brought vividly back to life on screen. This performance was professionally filmed with a live theater audience in April 2018, and is streaming May 4–30, 2021. Visit our website for tickets and information.
