Winner of Helpmanns, AACTAs and Logies, made popular by roles like TV’s Rake and The Duke in Baz Luhrmann’s film Moulin Rouge!, Richard Roxburgh first stepped into his professional acting shoes with Sydney Theatre Company way back in 1987. At just 25 years of age and fresh out of NIDA, his first part with the company was actually three – playing Thaliart, Leonine and Lysimachus in Pericles, a play authored (at least in part, historians surmise) by Shakespeare.

Richard Roxburgh in Sydney Theatre Company’s The Tempest, 2022. Photo © Daniel Boud

Thirty-five years later, Roxburgh returns to the STC and Shakespeare with The Tempest. Swathed in a rough cape and cowl, Roxburgh inhabits far statelier shoes, taking the lead, complicated role of the magician Prospero. The Bard’s (thought to be) final play of treachery and enchantment, love and liberty, power and its relinquishment, The Tempest begins when Prospero, rightful Duke of Milan, shipwrecks his usurper Alonso and attendants on the island to which he fled, has enchanted, and whose sparse inhabitants he now rules over.

In Kip Williams’ presentation, the text has opened up at particular seams to include lines from...