If you hoped that “what’s past is prologue” to Aaron Posner’s new production of “The Tempest” at the Folger Theatre, think again. Despite the recent handful of diverse incarnations of William Shakespeare’s final drama produced upon the banks of the Potomac over the past few theater seasons, Posner has dramatically pared down the bard’s work to conjure up a storm more tropical depression than catastrophic hurricane.

The magical tale of a usurped duke and his wide-eyed daughter stranded on an enchanted island in the Bermudas becomes anorexic under Posner’s deliberate revisions. Pages of exposition are sheared in favor of a sleek story that focuses on the betrayed brother’s forgiveness and folly than on any anger or resentment harbored within. When Prospero, the betrayed brother to the new duke of Milan, works his “rough magic” here, tossing ashore his brother and an entire host of Italian royalty, it seems more like the winds of a benefactor blowing than a man hell-bent on revenge.