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Ariel
In the Globe Theatre Company's production of The Tempest, Ariel was played by Geraldine Alexander.
About Geraldine Alexander
Geraldine previously appeared at the Globe in The Maid's Tragedy. She has also appeared in productions for the Manchester Royal Exchange, the Leeds Playhouse, the York Theatre Royal and the RSC. Her television work includes the role of Francine Faraday in Jonathan Creek.
Click on the numbered links to follow Geraldine's journey as she creates and plays the character of Ariel in the Globe Theatre.
Geraldine Alexander - Character Notes 1
These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process-they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.
Rehearsals for The Tempest started off with a read through. For the past few days the company has been going through the script looking at every line and trying to ensure that everyone has a common understanding of what is happening in each scene.
We have worked a lot on movement and voice. The company has also experimented with sound to explore what is the nature of the tempest at the beginning of the play. Lenka (Udovicki, the director) has talked about her ideas for the play so that the company has a common starting point and focus. There will be a strong Balkan theme in this production as both Lenka and the designer Bjanka Ursulov are from the former Yugoslavia.
We have so many more questions now than when we started! I've been working a great deal with Nigel Osbourne the musical director, working on noises and sound to create the atmosphere and sense of the island. I'm not a singer, but Ariel creates sound and noises - and does sing - so I'm working to find a vocabulary for those moments. Nigel is trying to work out what music to write for the production, he has the themes that are in the play but must also work with voices of the actors in the company. Everything at the moment is a process of discovery - an open book.
I have been speaking to the designer about Ariel's boots. It is quite a luxury for an actor to have the opportunity to influence their costume in this way and I want to talk it through with Bjanka again before any final decisions are made. I've tried to fight any preconceptions about Ariel - I'm not a singer so there will not be beautiful choral type singing - the only idea I did have was strangely about boots and so did Lenka - I don't know what that's about but I'm sticking with it!
It is unusual to cast a woman as Ariel - all the references in the text are to 'he', 'him' etc. I think s/he is a spirit, she is part of Prospero and can easily be played by a man or a woman. I would like the audience to see a progression and development in the character of Ariel throughout the play. She is not just a spirit. I think the connection between Ariel and Prospero is the 'best' or most honest relationship in the play. When playing Ariel you have to struggle to find a person to play rather than ideas. People have so many ideas about the themes or concepts Ariel embodies - I'm trying to think what does she want? Where does she come from? You can't just come on stage and 'be' a spirit, especially not in the Globe because there is no hope of lighting or special effects that are going to magic you and the audience somewhere - that will create the magic of the play for you.
We do have some history for Ariel e.g. she spent twelve years locked in a tree. I use a 'method' approach before rehearsal, for example I write lists about what characters say about Ariel and what Ariel says about herself. I find this disciplines me - it is like being Sherlock Holmes you look for the clues about your character. We do know that Ariel is fundamentally composed of air - her main Laban or effort/constituency/quintessence is air - so I have to find a way of moving that reflects that. We also know that Ariel is a good spirit and at the end of the play is set free. I think that this can only happen because of the state Prospero has reached in the final scenes. I know that I definitely do not want to play a 'prancy' Peter Pan type character that twinkles about.
Lenka showed me a picture of a ladder with an Angel climbing up it - that was a very clear image that I found enormously helpful. I've also seen another picture of Ariel whispering to Prospero that was useful. I'm finding the Balkan music that Nigel (Osbourne) is using very interesting, it is strong 'sexy' music that gives me a strong basis from which to work - it also gives a sense that Ariel has feeling. Ariel says that if she were human she would be able to feel something. This statement could lead to a belief that Ariel has no feeling. However we know that she cried out in pain for twelve years. At this stage I don't think it would work to play Ariel simply as someone who observes rather than participates. It will be wonderful to play Ariel at the Globe because on the Globe stage she can always see where she wants to be 'on the curled cloud' - that is what she wants - liberty to be free.
At the moment the challenge is to create the magic of the play through performance rather than effects. I'm working on every aspect of my performance from singing to circus skills. I've been thinking about what is a nymph and a harpy - Ariel becomes both in the play. I have to go off stage and then return having assumed these different personas. Ariel can transform herself. The whole part at this stage is challenging. Ariel is a very physical role. There are lots of references to the way Ariel moves e.g. we are told that she moves like quick silver, but you cannot spend two hours darting around the stage, instead I'm trying to find a way to suggest this type of movement.
The play also deals with perception - how different people see the same event. A 'good' person might see or understand an event in a different way from a 'bad' person. This is another interesting area to explore as Ariel.
Activities for students
1) Geraldine uses a method-based approach - as part of this she makes lists of what is said about her character by others and what her character says about herself. Try making these two lists for Ariel. Send them to Geraldine so that she can compare them with her own.
2) Geraldine believes that the relationship between Ariel and Prospero is the most honest in the play. Do you agree?
3) Music and musical effects will be used to create the magic of the play and the use of sound and singing will form a key part of Geraldine's performance. Create your own musical/sound vocabulary for Ariel. This might consist of anything, from simple rhythms or drum beats to more complex pieces of music.
4) Geraldine has found pictures to be a very useful source of stimulus for her characterisation of Ariel. Look for pictures or images that suggest elements of Ariel's character. Use them as starting points for your own improvisations or send them to Geraldine to use in rehearsal.
Geraldine Alexander - Character Notes 2
These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process-they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.
We have now begun to perform the Tempest, which is fantastic. The last few weeks of rehearsal have been extremely hectic. I am having a wonderful time playing Ariel at the Globe. I love the space and the audiences have been terrific. I like being able to see all their faces but I have to be very disciplined. I want to direct all my lines to them, as Caliban is able to do, but it is not appropriate to Ariel's character. Ariel spends a lot of time watching the actions of others from the stage. I’d like to be able to turn to the audience and give them a knowing wink, but I can’t. Ariel is more distant than that.
The Tempest has been one of the most ‘tempestuous’ plays that I have ever been involved in. Things have been changing continuously right up until we opened the show. These have been from ideas that just didn’t work once we got into the space down to Trinculo breaking his ankle in the final rehearsal before opening night!
Originally Ariel was going to be very acrobatic, climbing up and down ropes and flying across the stage. I spent a lot of time in rehearsal learning these techniques. I enjoyed it immensely as I love things like this, but right from early on I began to realise that we were probably not going to be able to use them in the show. We had thought that The Tempest was going to be acrobatic all round. But early on we began to see that this wasn’t the direction that it was going in. But, it was still thought that Ariel would use the techniques. I had my doubts. It wasn’t until we began to work on the Globe stage that other people began to see that it wasn’t working. The space is very specific. Things either work immediately or will never work. There is no point in persisting when you know something just doesn’t work, so we scraped it immediately. But, having said this, I wouldn’t say that my time had been wasted. I have a lot of new skills, and everything we did helped to inform Ariel's movements. I don’t regret doing it.
I do still have flying entrances where I am suspended above the theatre holding onto a rope. It is truly petrifying. My cue to enter is dependent on a moment that happens on the stage during a Caliban, Trinculo, Stephano scene. They change what they are doing every night and sometimes I am left suspended for quite some time. My arms get tired and begin to shake and it is only my fear and not my strength that keeps me holding on.
Playing Ariel has become easier and easier throughout rehearsal and into performance. When I came to the part I had no sense of he/she /it. I just had a few thoughts with no idea of how to make them into a character that an audience would like. But now the choices I am faced with about her (let's call ‘it’ her, as I am female) are becoming simpler. I have a very clear through-line for her. In searching for a character for Ariel I kept coming back to the one thing that I did know about her. She wants her liberty. And the behaviour of someone who wants to be free is the same for anything, be it man, woman, animal or spirit. So this goal helped me find a clear ‘personality’ for her. I think that she changes a lot during the play, as all the characters do. Ariel begins as a servant to Prospero and nothing more. She's almost androgynous. But as the play progresses and she begins to think about being free more and more, she starts to turn into a young woman. In terms of playing the part, at the start I feel like a young boy and by then end I feel very feminine. That is what my journey as an actor feels like. It's not necessarily the same as Ariel's journey. I think that I associate a youthful quality with her because she is the spirit of the air. I think that the movements of young people, with their energy, imagination, and the way they are puzzled by things because they are learning all the time, are inextricably linked with Ariel. You can see this when she watches Miranda and Ferdinand. Their relationship and interaction fascinate her, and I think she learns human qualities from them. But she watches everybody, and she is puzzled by many of the humans she sees and why they do bad things. She doesn’t have a scene with Caliban, which I think is a shame, as I’d like to be able to see the contrast between them on stage and to discover how they behave towards each other.
I have found the costume very helpful. I had a very clear idea of how she should look and it really does help me to play the part. I didn’t have to experiment with make up. I knew exactly what she should look like. I whiten my face, but rather than rubbing the powder in, I leave it in blotches on my face. She almost looks like she's just bumped into a cloud. I feel like a spirit that is part of the air when I am in her costume. The costume itself is like a uniform. I really like it as I feel like the servant that I am. It is also androgynous so I can go through my journey from male to female without feeling restricted in any way.
We are now in our first week of rehearsal of The Two Noble Kinsmen, which is the second show that we will be performing at the Globe. Some of the company is worried about how easy or difficult it will be to keep changing the focus from one show to another. I am really looking forward to it. I love to work this way. The ‘change is as good as a rest’. I think that it will prevent us from getting stale. Each time I come back to The Tempest I will be fresh and excited because I have been doing something different in the interim. It brings variety. The two shows will be very different.
The only thing that I have been disappointed about has been the weather. It had rained for virtually every performance, and then yesterday it was beautifully sunny. It was then that I realise how much easier and how much more fun the show is in the sunshine. In the rain you always seem to be worrying about the audience being cold or wet. I also worry about myself. One night I was so cold holding a frozen position that when it was time for me to move, my leg had gone dead. In the lovely weather, it is a wonderful part to play, and I am having a wonderful time.
Geraldine Alexander - Character Notes 3
These comments are the actor's thoughts and ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretation and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.
I am really enjoying playing Ariel in The Tempest. The audiences love it. I have never been in a production like it. The whole play seems to have taken on a life of its own over and above the actors who are in it. It still feels very fresh and I still get nervous every time I make my first flying entrance in Act 1 Scene 2. I get ‘butterflies’ just like the first time I performed The Tempest. My only problem seems to be that my body is becoming unaligned. This is because I hold onto the rope in the Heavens (waiting for my cue to fly) with my right arm. When I went for a costume fitting the other day for The Two Noble Kinsmen, the designer said that she could see how much higher my right shoulder is than my left. The costume department has suggested that I try alternating my arms for each of my flying entrances, but as yet I don’t have the courage to hold on just with my left hand.
Ariel's relationship with the audience is not as close as some of the other characters in the play. There are only one or two moments in the play where she directs lines out to them. The rest of the time Ariel doesn’t look at the audience. She looks out, but she looks through them. It isn’t until the end of the play, once she is free, that she does look at them and acknowledges their presence as she walks through them. I think that this is in keeping with her journey through the play. As far as I am concerned the audiences are not spectators, they are the scenery, the island, maybe even spirits. I spend most of my time listening and learning from the other characters on stage. It is only when you see the play that you really understand just how often Ariel is present on stage. In this production she is on stage even more than the text suggests.
Playing Ariel can be quite tiring as she is on stage so much in frozen positions. She listens to what is being said. The Globe is an interesting theatre because only one person can have the focus at any time and everybody else on stage has to know who has it. The whole experience of playing on the Globe stage is a more like a sporting event than a theatre event because of the audience's involvement and intense concentration. Brecht said that theatre should be like watching a boxing match, where you see something happen and react instantly to it. I feel that The Globe conforms to that in many respects. Audiences at a boxing match are completely alive, as audiences are at The Globe.
I am finding that the damp weather is having a dampening effect on the show. The water seems to seep into the wood and you lose a lot of the energy that you get from the space in dry weather. The audiences also seem to get dampened by the weather and are never as responsive and alive as they are in better conditions. It is also hard for the actors as the voice tends to sound flat and does not resonate through the theatre in the way that it normally does. It can be a bit like working inside a damp drum.
Since The Tempest has opened I have learnt to simplify my thoughts and actions. If things are simple they are clear to the audience. I get lots of letters from the public, from all sorts of different types of people who all seemed to relate to Ariel. I used to get very bogged down thinking about all their different theories before I realised that people were reacting to her like that because she is a spirit and could therefore can be defined by the individuals own wants or needs. I had to learn to play Ariel as a spirit rather than trying to portray the many different characters that people see in her. In many ways she can be interpreted in any way you want to. I really don’t think that any two actors or even any two people have the same ideas about Ariel.
We are currently rehearsing The Two Noble Kinsmen as well. I am playing Emilia. It is a difficult part as two writers (Shakespeare and Fletcher) wrote the play, and there are some contradictions within her character. The play is quite ritualised and would not have been played naturalistically in Elizabethan times. We are not following the Elizabethan ideas about it and are trying to perform the play with as much naturalism as possible. This is quite hard because the character has so many contradictions. But, I suppose in some ways this makes Emilia quite realistic as we all have contradictions inside us. It just makes it harder for me to get to know and understand her. I’m a long way from figuring her out.
I already have my costume for Emilia, which is rather girly. I have to let this influence how I play the role. For both The Tempest and The Two Noble Kinsmen the costumes were designed before I got to know the characters. This is due to the short rehearsal periods. That doesn’t mean that I can’t change the costume to more accurately represent the character that I have developed, however the basic designs have to remain the same. I generally like to have the costumes designed and made once I have a clear idea of the character. I don’t like to see my costume until the last week or so of rehearsal. But, time has been a factor here.
Activities for Students
Ariel's relationship with the audience
Geraldine feels that Ariel does not develop a relationship with the audience until the end of the play. She feels that they are scenery, the island or spirits. Do you agree? Do you think that Ariel should acknowledge the audience? Give reasons for your answers.
Geraldine Alexander - Character Notes 4
These comments are the actor's thoughts and ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretation and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.
We have begun performances of The Two Noble Kinsmen now. Time is moving very quickly and we are almost at the end of the Globe season.
Putting The Two Noble Kinsmen on the Globe stage has been a very different process from putting The Tempest on the stage. The Tempest went through many great changes once we started to work on the stage. Ideas that worked in rehearsal didn’t work in the Globe space – all the acrobatic ideas were eliminated. With The Two Noble Kinsmen it has been more of a progression. We kept adding to ideas rather than changing them.
I have found that Emilia is quite a difficult character to play, as there are a lot of inconstancies in her character. I found that yet again the space has been teaching me a lot about performance. In order to make things work on the Globe stage, you have to have very clear ideas about your character in your head. The audience is a very important guide to an actor at the Globe. In rehearsal I had thought that Emilia is a very fake character who pretended a lot. I have learnt that you have to appear genuine on the stage. You can’t act false. If you do the audience will stare at you in disbelief. It will not come across clearly and the actor will appear unbelievable. I had to look for a different way of portraying her. The stage doesn’t take pretence very well. You have to be real.
I like The Two Noble Kinsmen a lot, as it is a good example of excellent storytelling. It is very important to have a good story at the Globe in order to engage the audience. I don’t however think that it is a very easy play to work with as an actor, because there are two separate stories that don’t meet or interact. This seems to force an audience to take sides. I also think that a lot of the complexities and inconsistencies that the play faces an actor with are due to the influence of its two separate writers, Shakespeare and Fletcher. Sometimes I wonder if they conferred. I find the parts written by Shakespeare much easier to work with. His verse seems to fit the mood of a scene more effectively than Fletcher’s. It also tends to be more rhythmical.
In The Two Noble Kinsmen we use the yard during the performance. I think that this may arouse debate, as it is not considered ‘authentic’ to do so. Of course there are many reasons why actors probably would not have used it 400 years ago. For one thing it would have been dangerous. Today, of course, the atmosphere in the yard is very different. I really enjoy using the yard. It is such an opportunity to experiment. I find that it stirs the audience up. I don’t think, however, that Shakespeare wrote any of his plays with intention of using the yard.
The groundlings don’t seem to know where to look when we use the yard. They are intimidated by having actors walk amongst them. Sometimes they seem to think that by looking at one person they may be missing something elsewhere, so they look around. This can be quite disconcerting when you are speaking to an audience member and they look everywhere else except at you. However, I do think that using the yard works extremely well and I really enjoy it.
We are not performing The Tempest as often as we were at the beginning of the season. I do miss playing Ariel and I know that I will be very sad after the last performance next week. Ariel is a unique character to play. She allows me to perform in my own little world. I listen, but react very little. Recently I have been finding her harder to play because I have spent so much time away from her thinking about Emilia, who is very different. I have my own method of focusing myself on the character I am playing. I think of the animal that each character represents and use the characteristics of that animal to refocus. To me, Ariel is a bird, representing her free nature. Emilia is more like a deer, always ready for any action.