Mortality: Serious or Calming?

In Act IV of The Tempest, Prospero suddenly halts the merry making of the spirits when he remembers that Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo are still a factor for him to worry about.  The other-worldly nature of the spirits Ariel had called on seems to vanish.  In the Globe's production of the play, this is visualized very clearly.  But in Sir John Gielgud's recorded reading of the soliloquy, it's not so obvious.  In the Globe production, Prospero enters a sort of headache-like trance in which he parallels the spirits' disappearing act to his own idea of mortality.  He is drawn into an exhortation of certainty: "We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep" (4.1.173-5).  The actor who portrays Prospero stares off into nothingness as he reflects, aloud, the reality that we all die and our lives are nothing more than fairy dust essentially.

Roger Allam's (aka Prospero's) trance is broken suddenly and he becomes very disturbed.  It's not an overstatement to admit that most would probably get very emotional from such a deep moment.  He wants nothing more than to be left alone with his thoughts and to have Ariel come and fix things.  As we have seen so many times in Globe productions, the characters go from deep emotional moments, filled with many moments of silence and suspense, to getting worked up and commanding a rapid shift in pace.  But in another version of Prospero's soliloquy, read by John Gielgud (a man who reeked of Shakespeare to his core), the Milanese ex-duke has a calm voice that produces the lines that hint death with a soothing tone.  A first time listener with an inadequate grasp of Shakespearean language and vocabulary would probably be able to use Gielgud's recording to put him to sleep.  No alarming change in dictation or tone is to be found in the recording.

It reveals something fascinating about mortality.  Do Sir John's words sound good to us because of his calming voice?  Or is death a comfort to us deep down?  Perhaps it is only in seeing someone outwardly disturbed by the thought of death, like in Mr. Allam's portrayal, that we issue a concerned and uncomfortable response.  If Shakespeare knew the answer, he probably would have added more concrete guidance in stage directions.  But alas, he didn't.  The speculation is left up to the audience (and/or the listener) to make of it what he will.  Regardless, both versions of how we hear the inner workings of Prospero's mind are valuable to his characterization and are what make The Tempest definitely not a comedy outright.  Death is a preoccupation, for Shakespeare, for Prospero, for us.