Contemporary theatre company Zen Zen Zo’s annual In The Raw Studio Season celebrates both the company’s experimental ethos as well as the rewards of its holistic internship program, culminating each year with an original, ensemble-based production. This year, that production is Shakepeare’s The Tempest, directed for the company by Lynne Bradley, a re-working of the Bard’s play that incorporates song, music and Zen Zen Zo’s inimitable hybrid style.

The Tempest is set on a single island, inhabited only by an exiled sorcerer, Prospero (Bryan Nason), rightful Duke of Milan; his daughter, Miranda (Jill Geurts); and Prospero’s slaves, both native to the island, a filthy wild man Caliban (Dale Thorburn) and a proud spirit, Ariel (Emma Dean).

Twelve years prior, Prospero and Miranda were stranded on the island after they were set adrift at sea by Prospero’s brother, Antonio (Luke Kerridge), the usurping Duke of Milan. Now, having divined that Antonio, the King of Naples (Jamie Kable), young Prince Ferdinand (Alex Mikic) and a ship of Antonio’s fellow conspirators are passing the island, Prospero invokes a great tempest to run the vessel ashore and contrives to divide and conquer the shipwreck’s survivors, drawing them through spells and cunning closer and closer to him.

The production opens with impact: vocalist Dean performing at a grand piano as Ariel’s amphibious chorus clash at sea with Antonio and his ship. The audience is then drawn tightly around Prospero’s central sanctum to hear his tale, and is genuinely spooked as Caliban and his creepy chorus encircle them like snarling beasts.

From here, the diverging plots of the distinct groups – fiendish Antonio and friends, Caliban’s encounter with a bunch of drunken court jesters, and a love plot for Prince Ferdinand and Miranda – are explored through moments of spoken word, dance, music and song. In promenade theatre style, audience members are led throughout the performance space, disoriented by the immersive and unfamiliar surrounds as though akin to the characters themselves, marooned on the island.

In her director’s notes, Bradley announces her interest in post-colonial readings of The Tempest, and some of the strengths of the production are the stylistically distinct ensemble groups of dispossessed "Others," in particular Ariel, Caliban, and the jesters.

With fellow set designers Drew der Kinderen and Luke Kerridge, director Bradley has transformed the vast Old Museum Concert Hall into a haunting cavern, the walls draped with calligraphy on calico scrolls. Prospero’s "island" thus becomes, rather, an internal chamber, to emphasise all of the characters’ yearnings to be set free – Prospero from exile, Caliban and Ariel from their master, Miranda from her father’s protection.

Local stars in their own rights, Brisbane theatre veteran Nason (founding member of Grin And Tonic) and singer-songwriter Dean are given top billing and have clearly been key collaborative figures for the production. Nason’s Prospero is an imposing figure, the omniscient sorcerer controlling his players from the centre. But it is Dean’s performance as the nymph-like Ariel, part-narrator and part-orchestrator as she carries out Prospero’s bidding, which is the most memorable. Dean performs live a suite of moody cabaret-inspired songs (composed by Dean with Colin Webber) that act as reflective interludes to the action, but she is also a theatrical and engaging storyteller.

Towards the end, the adaptation loses the promising pace of the opening as well as some of its emotional punch in favour of visual spectacle. The ensemble is strongest when it unites in Zen Zen Zo’s highly physical and visceral "house style"; by contrast, Shakespeare’s text exposes some weaknesses in the company’s vocal practice. But Dean’s revelatory performance and the completely immersive promenade experience make The Tempest a memorable, original offering from Zen Zen Zo.

THE TEMPEST plays the Old Museum Building, Bowen Hills, until July 11. For tickets phone 3252 5540 or visit www.zenzenzo.com.

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