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It was long believed that "The Tempest" was the dramatist Shakespeare's good-bye to London and the stage. In this romantic, attractive, unfounded notion, Prospero = Shakespeare. Perhaps a more fruitful analogue is this: Prospero is hard to get a handle on, as is, sometimes, Shakespeare. What do we make of Prospero? Two great English directors split on him and his fate in memorable modern productions; Peter Brook thought Prospero ended as a god, and Peter Hall thought he ended up a disillusioned old man. Derrick Lee Weeden's Prospero, as directed by Libby Appel in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's production of "The Tempest" that kicked off the OSF's outdoor season Friday night, is a bit of both. Weeden's eyes gleam with satisfaction at his power to command the elements and confound his enemies, yet the hard-won wisdom he has earned seems to have stripped him of illusions. He triumphs without triumphalism, perhaps a bit burnt out. For her swan song as the OSF's artistic director — she is retiring at the end of the season — Appel has fixed on a Prospero who is willing himself to move beyond magic. To effect the reconciliation I believe Appel takes as the spine of the play, Prospero must bury his magic book. He must move on, not only for his own destiny but to clear the way for Miranda and Ferdinand. Appel's productions have always been marked by a unity of conception running through them, and "The Tempest" is no exception. It's a straight-ahead, magical, redemptive vision that eschews some of the conceits and temptations of our times: Prospero as a stage magician, Prospero as a colonial friar, an oppressed, Third-World Caliban, and so on. With actors draped in Deborah M. Dryden's period costumes and illuminated by Bob Peterson's gorgeous lighting, the romance plays with a fairy-tale quality. There is no plot worthy of the name, but a succession of big, masque-like scenes including a highly theatrical staging of Prospero's celebration of the union of Miranda (Nell Geisslinger) and Ferdinand (John Tufts). This is accomplished with aid of Aerial's (Nancy Rodriguez) shadows, assistants to the air/fire sprite that will make you think of the Pucksters that assisted Puck in the OSF's 2003 "A Midsummer Night's Dream." In another casting departure, Prospero's brother, Antonio, has become his sister, Antonia (Greta Oglesby). This affects things less than making Prospero a woman, as the OSF did in 2001. It is customary for Caliban to be portrayed as some manner of sea monster, but Dan Donohue, in a return to OSF, is done up as a mummy who has come to life and discovered previously owned duct tape. A matrix of ropes around him suggests bondage, one of the play's themes (although this Aerial seems scarcely to chafe at her bonds). The drunken conspirators — Michael J. Hume as Stephano and Christopher DuVal as Trinculo, cavorting with Caliban — are a hoot. Although many of the characters lead rather tragic lives, Prospero's powers ensure a happy ending, relatively speaking. For him there is no gap between thought and deed. What he knows he controls. Which is one of the play's problems, it seems to me. There are no obstacles to his will. This is most obvious with the Miranda-Ferdinand match, but also in the conspiracy subplots. Weeden, despite a parental warmth for Miranda, avoids making Prospero likeable. Although he is God-like in his powers, his impacted wrath is always threatening to get the better of his mercy. He eventually abandons power over others for human sympathy. Yet except for Alonso (Armando Duran), there's no repentance among his adversaries. "The Tempest" is a comic play with tragic aspects, and some of the laughs in it were not found. Most great Shakespeare characters wind up being annihilated. In this play not only does Prospero triumph, nobody gets hurt. The ending is happy enough, but it falls short of the bonhomie of high comedy. It is hard to imagine Prospero back in Milan jumping all over the same minutiae of statecraft he lost interest in a decade-and-a-half earlier. Antonia and Sebastian will still be kicking around. Indeed, when our revels (another word for a masque) are ended, Prospero seems just about cranky as ever. And why not? He's given up god-like status to return to a flawed world. Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or [email protected].