Miranda

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In the Globe Theatre Company's production of The Tempest, Miranda was played by Kananu Kirimi.

About Kananu Kirimi

This is one of Kananu's first roles since leaving drama school. She played Lady Macbeth for the Scottish Youth Theatre and Ophelia in Hamlet at LAMDA.

Click on the numbered links to follow Kananu's journey as she creates and plays the character of Miranda in the Globe Theatre.

Kananu Kirimi - 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.

This is my first role since Drama school. Last week I was at LAMDA and now I'm starting my first acting job. I grew up in Scotland and I am half Kenyan.

I liked the way everyone was introduced on the first day. It made feel less nervous. I wasn't expected to be some kind of 'Shakespearean type'. There is a family feeling at the Globe and everyone is treated equally.

When I went to school there were hardly any black people in the audiences for plays, especially Shakespeare. There were hardly any black people on stage, too, and they usually played servants or Jamaican housemaids. You don't realise how it affects you. You need role models in your head. Acting-wise, one of my role models is Cathy Tyson, who starred in the film Mona Lisa with Bob Hoskins.

The first day we read through the play. I was wondering if it would be different from Drama school. It was fine. No one was judging-if people made mistakes they just said what they had got wrong.

I've never seen the play before and I hadn't read it until I was preparing for my audition. I'd heard of Peter Greenway's film Prospero's Books, which is based on The Tempest.

The first time I read the play, I thought that Prospero was a bit scary-he was so powerful-and Miranda was just his little daughter. Then I saw that she answers back to him. Prospero respects Miranda. It is a normal relationship between a father and a daughter. I see a lot more strength in her than I saw before. The play seems a lot more realistic.

I grew up in Scotland and boys and girls played games together. I think Miranda is like that. She's quite strong. Just because she falls in love doesn't make her 'girlie girlie'.

The company has also spent time going over verse-the rhythm of it-with Tim (Carroll, Master of Verse for The Tempest). We started with the basics, tapping the rhythm on our knees. We each had to say our birthday in iambic pentameter. 'My birthday is the twenty-third of June.'

I try not to slip into a 'posh' way of speaking. I want to speak Shakespeare's language in my normal voice. It's a heightened way of speaking because my lines are in verse and the situation isn't everyday life, but I want to speak in a way that I as a normal person would react in this situation.

I want to try to play around. It's like when you play a game. The best games are when everyone is really into it. I'm trying to not to worry at this stage or to think that I should have all of the answers!

Activities for Students

You might like to think about some of the questions and issues that have been occupying Kananu during the first week of rehearsal. Because the company has been reading the play during this first week, the activities this time are mostly theoretical in nature.

1) Role Models

Kananu believes it is important to have role models. Who do you think are good role models? Send your ideas to Kananu.

2) Iambic Pentameter

Ask your teacher to beat out the rhythm of what Kananu refers to as an 'iambic pentameter'. Try this for yourself. Try saying your birthday in this rhythm as Kananu - Kananu's example: 'My birthday is the twenty-third of June.'

3) Island

Miranda has lived on an island with her father for most of her life. She is cut off from any kind of world that you might know, she would not recognise the everyday objects that we would take for granted. Write a letter to Miranda describing an everyday object that she would not have seen. You could also include a picture.
Give reasons for all of your answers. Try to find evidence in the text to 'back up' your ideas.

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Kananu Kirimi - 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.

After sitting and talking about the text for so long, we finally undertook the scary task of putting it on its feet. We went straight into it, which I found very hard, especially considering what happens to Miranda in the first scene. She watches the storm unfold in front of her whilst talking to her father about the past. It was very hard and I wasn’t great the first time but Lenka (Udovicki, director) was great, and we started to try it different ways to loosen ourselves up. We even tired running around the stage.

Today we worked with Tim on the verse, so that we felt more comfortable and relaxed with the text. He helped me to stop going down at that end of every line. Instead I had to raise the pitch. At first this felt mechanical, but now I can see how much this has helped me. I felt intimidated because so much of the first scene is so focused on Miranda and Prospero. There was no way of being eased in to the action. These feelings of exposure are exaggerated at the Globe because the audience is so close (although they’re not there yet). I was very nervous about working with Venessa (Redgrave, Prospero), but this has turned out to be great and I am learning a great deal from her and her approach to the work.

I am also beginning to find out more about Miranda as we go along. Until I started to stand up and play the part, I hadn’t really thought about how young she is. She's not a child, but she isn’t an adult either. Lenka thought that I could carry an object around with me, perhaps a unicorn. This isn’t as childish as a doll might be, but does also suggest her youth.

I tend to do some of my character research and work at home and some in the rehearsals. This is all new to me, and I find that I can learn a lot about my own character through watching others and being really open to all suggestions. The opening scene, however, is very different as it involves much of Miranda's past and lots of different intentions. For this scene I chose to do much of the work at home.

But you can’t plan everything at home as you never know what the people playing alongside you are going to do. You have to be open to other people's agendas.

I also think that you can’t come to the role pretending to be a 14-year-old girl. You have to be yourself and then, once you are in the situation, using her words, the emotions and the reactions come to you.

I have also been trying to think about how Miranda must feel about the plans that her fathers been making, and also trying to think of a realistic image for the love at first sight between her and Ferdinand. This is all new to Miranda. She has also grown up with only male influence, so perhaps she doesn’t know how to be ‘girlie’. It's hard to know how to convey that. She's also scared of her feelings for him.

It has been a hugely exciting week for me. I’m working with Venessa Redgrave and staring to get my teeth into the part. I am exhausted, but very happy. I am realising my dreams.

One of the challenges I now face is to find the right dynamic between Miranda and her father, the patriarch, ironically played by a woman. This may prove to be a great challenge in getting the balance just right.

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Kananu Kirimi - Character Notes 3

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.

The first week on stage changed my impressions of Miranda a lot. When I looked out on the first night and saw all the people looking at me I was petrified. On stage I noticed that the audience was reacting really well to the bits where Miranda is bold and sticks up for herself. They were laughing when she argues with Prospero and when she picks up the log. I hadn’t been sure before about how bold to make her. I knew that she wasn’t all weedy and girlie, but I wasn’t sure how bolshy she could be when faced with all these new things. But, having said that, being innocent perhaps leaves her with no inhibitions. I’ve been thinking about how she reacts when she sees all the men at the end of the play. Lenka (Udovicki, director) wanted her ogling all the men. I thought that this was very predictable. But when you get up on the Globe stage with an audience there, you realise that big things really do work well. You can’t be self-depreciating. You just have to give it all.

Having said this I’ve still got a lot further to go. There are lots of elements of my relationship with Prospero that I still have to work out. With Will (Keen, Ferdinand) it's easier. We’ve spent a lot of time together, so have been able to develop closeness on stage. It has been a little more difficult with Vanessa (Redgrave, Prospero). Prospero is my father and I respect him, but there is also supposed to be some sort of closeness that I don’t think that we have yet. I think that Miranda is a little in awe of Prospero with his magic. In the same way, I am a little in awe of Vanessa. At the moment the relationship is a little distant and formal.

I have started to think about how I can interact with the audience. It's difficult, especially when you see characters like Caliban who have so much scope for talking to the audience. But there are lots of lines that Miranda has that could be said to the audience. I have tried directing lines to the audience. On one night I looked out and saw so many faces staring at me, that I had such a fright I buried my face in my hands. I realise now that you just have to go for it without thinking – if you don’t worry about looking silly, there is more chance that it will come off. I did manage to it once where it worked very well.

I had never read or seen the Tempest before I got the part of Miranda. It's taking me a really long time to get a good idea of where she lies in the sense of the whole play and how important her part is. It's particularly difficult because we rehearse in isolation. I didn’t have that much of a sense of the whole play until it opened, so I wasn’t sure what my place was. I’ve still got a long way to go.

Having tour groups in during rehearsal helped to bridge the gap for me between the rehearsal room and the theatre. It was good also to see how people were reacting to what we were doing. I could watch the groups faces whilst others were on stage. It was actually very encouraging. Some people felt that they were being intruded upon. I didn’t though.

I have found the atmosphere at the Globe wonderful. Nobody has made me feel young or inexperienced. I think that this maybe because the shows are advertised under the name of the Globe. It doesn’t seem to matter so much who is playing which part – even when its Vanessa Redgrave. I think that this has the effect of everybody pulling together and nobody feeling that they are more important than anybody else.

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Kananu Kirimi - Character Notes 4

These 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 started to rehearse The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. I am playing 4 small parts. At college I always found small parts very interesting to play as you play with the character by inventing their history and have to explore ways of making each character different. I’m not out to ‘steal the show’ in The Two Noble Kinsmen, but I still have to find ways to make the parts interesting and challenging. Tim (Carroll Master Of Play) has come out with lots of ideas. For example, a scene with one of my characters, a country woman is set at a dance. We are going to play the scene with the schoolmaster organising the dance like a young teacher who gets very embarrassed when he has to speak to the country women. I have thought about using different accents for each of the characters that I play. I haven’t tried this out yet. I intend to today. I am very happy with my characters, as they are all so different. I play everything from a maid to a queen.

Some people say that The Two Noble Kinsmen is a difficult play to understand, but I found the story less confusing and easier to work with than I did during the first few weeks of rehearsal for The Tempest. I think this could be to do with the difference in the rehearsal process for The Two Noble Kinsmen. We are able to rehearse as a company, in a way that we weren’t able to do for The Tempest, because the characters are on the island in isolated groups. There are several large scenes in The Two Noble Kinsmen, for which all the actors rehearse tomorrow.

As well as rehearsing for The Two Noble Kinsmen we are still performing The Tempest. Although we had done many performances now, I am still finding the show very ‘fresh’. I tend to go on stage every day with a different thought about Miranda, which I use to help me during the performance, in my head. It often tends to be a film I’ve just seen or a passage from a book or a poem that relates to something about Miranda. This makes every performance very different.

I had a bit of a scare yesterday as it was the first time I had really messed up my lines. It happened in Act 1 Scene 2 with Prospero. I had lost my concentration and wasn’t listening, so I replied with an incorrect line which effected Vanessa (Redgrave, Prospero) as her next speech was directly related to what I should have said. I went home and went over my lines and have been reminded about the importance of focusing on stage. It's funny though because the audience didn’t seem to notice.

I’m still unsure about talking to the audience so I am still experimenting. I can’t decide whether to treat the audience as a general mass or to pick out individual people. I find that my ability to talk directly to them changes with each performance. When I am horrible to Caliban in Act 1 Scene 2, I get one of two reactions from the audience. They either side with him or with me. If they take my side I find it a lot easier to talk to them later, as I feel I have a closer rapport with them.

I have also been rethinking some of my performance. In Act 5 I see lots of men for the first time and I go and give each one a hug. But I have recently been thinking about how I should be reacting to Prospero. I have been virtually ignoring him. But he is dressed in clothes that I have never seen him in before, and I wonder if I should react to that. I have decided to keep playing the scene the way I always have done because I think that Miranda would look at him but, being so excited, she would only see her father, and not his clothing.

Sometimes I find that scenes are feeling a little monotonous and so I try to surprise the other people on stage. This happens a lot with the log scene in Act 3 Scene 1. We try different ideas all the time. Just changing the intonation of one line can change the scene completely. When I started rehearsal I thought that I would know everything there is to know about The Tempest by now, but that just isn’t the case. I am still discovering new things everyday.

Activities for Students

Different Characters

In The Two Noble Kinsmen Kananu plays a maid and a queen. One of her challenges is to ensure that each character is different. What words can you think of to describe a) a maid b) a queen? How might each character be different?

Ideas for Kananu

Kananu has now been playing Miranda since May. She has to work hard to make sure that she does not give the same performance every day and that she makes her character interesting for the audience. One of the ways she does this is to take ideas from TV programmes or films. Does anything you have seen on film or TV recently remind you of Miranda?

Send your ideas to Kananu so she can use them in her performance and at rehearsal.

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Kananu Kirimi - Character Notes 5

These 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

The season is almost at an end and we only have one performance of The Tempest left. We have been performing The Two Noble Kinsmen for a month now. I am really enjoying playing in repertoire. It is easier than I thought it would be. I think that this is because I find that there is a lot less pressure on me in The Two Noble Kinsmen as there is for The Tempest. This is largely due to the size of my parts in The Two Noble Kinsmen. I play three small parts is the show so have been allowed to spend time creating them into what I want. I can have lots of fun with it and don’t have to be quite so conscientious. Even though we are so near the end, I am still experimenting and trying out lots of different things.

I have been having particularly good fun playing one of the queens. The character is so far removed from Miranda. It has been challenging though, as well as enjoyable. I thought that once you learnt how to be heard on the stage for one play then you would be able to be heard in the next. This has not been the case. The queens wear large veils and I have found that this absorbs lots of the sound so you have to work harder and project further. It is almost as though you have to find a different voice.

In rehearsal I had been thinking about using different accents to distinguish each character, but in the end decided that there were enough ways of making them different without using regional accents. The costumes are the biggest influence on this. The queen's costume is very over the top but also very restrictive. When I am wearing it I find that I naturally stand with my shoulders back and my head held high. This, in turn, influences my voice. This is the case with all my characters, so I would say that it is the physicality of each that distinguishes them, rather than there voice.

Performing The Tempest and performing The Two Noble Kinsmen are very different experiences for me. In The Two Noble Kinsmen I am trying to make the most out of my small parts. With Miranda I am dealing with so much that I have to think about how I’m going to get through it all. But, I can’t say that I enjoy playing in one show more than the other. They are just very different.

One of the biggest differences between The Tempest and The Two Noble Kinsmen is not about my characters but a difference in the director's approach. Lenka (Udovicki, Master of Play for The Tempest) had very definite ideas about what she wanted the play to be like. Once rehearsal was over and performances had begun, she left The Globe and returned home. This meant that from that moment onwards the show was in our hands. It developed in ways that we wanted it to. Tim (Carroll, Master of Play for The Two Noble Kinsmen), however, is around all the time and sees the show a lot. I find this quite reassuring, as he gives us notes every week or so, telling us what works and what does not. It is also good because I know that I can go and ask him any questions that come up during the run. With The Tempest I was more on my own.

In The Two Noble Kinsmen we make use of the yard. I found that there was a huge jump between rehearsing this in a small studio and performing it on the stage. At one moment I have to shout at Emilia (Geraldine Alexandra). In the rehearsal room I was just raising my voice. It wasn’t until we got in the theatre that I realised just how far away she was going to be. I also thought that playing in the yard would be really scary. It isn’t. I find it really energising. The audience's reaction is amazing. I barge though the groundlings dressed as a queen. As I push past them they turn as if to ask me not to push in and then they realise that it's part of the show and they part like the Red Sea.

Tim (Carroll, Master of Play for The Two Noble Kinsmen) saw the yard as a wonderful opportunity that is so often ignored. I am not sure that he would have made the same decision performing this play in a conventional theatre. Because you can see the audience at the Globe, there is never any illusion about them not being there. You can’t ignore them. So, if you aren’t ignoring them, then why not use them and involve them. One of the main things I have noticed about audiences at the Globe is their desire to become involved – hence why they shout out so much during The Tempest.

Performing at the Globe has been very different from the way that I had imagined it to be. I had thought that there would be a lot of guidance in how to portray the roles and that people would discuss lots of possibilities. It is nothing like that. You have a lot of time to try things out for yourself and decide how you want to do things. I had also never really considered what effect the audience would have on the performance. I have learnt how to react to the audience's comments but also how to carry on though all of their noise. I now know that I am a lot harder to distract.

My reaction to the audience has changed hugely over the season. At first I was too scared to react to them. I used to want to block them out, but knew that I couldn’t. I didn’t have as much confidence as I do now. They no longer intimidate me at all. That comes from practise and also from the great feeling within the company. Everybody helps everybody else out.

Once the season is finished I will be returning to Scotland to be in a production of Romeo and Juliet. I have been looking at the script and seeing how many long speeches I have. I am very thankful for my time here, as I now feel that I am prepared to tackle them in a way that I wasn’t six months ago. I have learnt so much from working at the Globe, not only on the stage but also from members of the company and though all the voice and movement classes that we had in preparation for The Tempest.

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