“We are such stuff / as dreams are made on, and our little life / is rounded with a sleep.” This is just one of many immortal lines that come from William Shakespeare’s last play, The Tempest, which dates to 1610–11. The action takes place on a small island, where Prospero, once the Duke of Milan, and his daughter Miranda live in exile with Prospero’s servant Ariel and slave Caliban. Prospero is also a sorcerer, whose power is born of words, a poetics that is lyrical and metaphysical. He uses that power to sink a passing ship—an illusion—and bring its passengers, who include those who wronged him, to the island. The play’s meditations on art, justice, and life’s ephemerality have been parsed along feminist lines, gender studies, postcolonialism, existentialism. Kenneth Branagh, now 65 and heading into grandeur, plays Prospero in this new production directed by Richard Eyre. —Laura Jacobs