Page 1 of 5 The Tempest: Character Detectives DURATION: 20 mins OBJECTIVE: To use Shakespeare’s language to gain a deeper understanding of the characters. KEY LEARNING POINTS: • A deeper understanding of characters in The Tempest. • Think about how Shakespeare uses language to describe the characters in The Tempest. • Consider the choices that a Director might have to make about casting. YOU WILL NEED: • Participants to have a basic understanding of characters in The Tempest (you could look at the Character Descriptions or do the Understanding Character and Relationships exercise first) • A copy of The Tempest: Character Descriptions • A copy of the Quotes about the Characters per participant- see below • Pens, one per participant. IT’S NICE TO HAVE: • Coloured paper and pens • Magazines, newspapers, glue OR computer, tablet or smartphone • The Origins of the Trilogy video ACTIVITY: • The participants should have some knowledge of the characters before they complete this exercise. You could do The Tempest: Understanding Character and Relationship exercise before this. • Ask participants to recap the characters and their relationships to each other. Who can they remember? You can use The Tempest: Character Descriptions as a reference for this. • Hand out the Quotes about the Characters worksheet. Explain that they will see a numbered list of quotes, and that these are quotes about characters in the play. Their job is to try and work out which list is for each character. 1. Ariel 2. Stephano 3. Gonzalo 4. Prospero 5. Trinculo
Transcript
Page 1 of 5
The Tempest: Character Detectives DURATION: 20 mins OBJECTIVE: To use Shakespeare’s language to gain a deeper understanding of the characters. KEY LEARNING POINTS: • A deeper understanding of characters in The Tempest. • Think about how Shakespeare uses language to describe the
characters in The Tempest. • Consider the choices that a Director might have to make about
casting. YOU WILL NEED: • Participants to have a basic understanding of characters in The
Tempest (you could look at the Character Descriptions or do the Understanding Character and Relationships exercise first)
• A copy of The Tempest: Character Descriptions • A copy of the Quotes about the Characters per participant- see below • Pens, one per participant.
IT’S NICE TO HAVE: • Coloured paper and pens • Magazines, newspapers, glue OR computer, tablet or smartphone • The Origins of the Trilogy video
ACTIVITY: • The participants should have some knowledge of the characters
before they complete this exercise. You could do The Tempest: Understanding Character and Relationship exercise before this.
• Ask participants to recap the characters and their relationships to each other. Who can they remember? You can use The Tempest: Character Descriptions as a reference for this.
• Hand out the Quotes about the Characters worksheet. Explain that they will see a numbered list of quotes, and that these are quotes about characters in the play. Their job is to try and work out which list is for each character.
6. Alonso 7. Caliban 8. Antonio 9. Miranda 10. Ferdinand 11. Sebastian
• Give participants 5-10 minutes to assign a list to each character. • Ask participants to share back their ideas. Ask them to reflect on why
they made these choices - what do the quotes tell us about the character? Gendered pronouns, titles for status, relationships, appearance etc.
• Ask the participants to use the descriptions to rank the characters in order of their status from low to high. What clues does the language give us about this?
• Ask the participants to think about who might have said each line? What does this say about their relationship to the character they are talking about?
• Explain that this is the process that actors often do in rehearsal when developing their characters. They will look through the script to find quotes for things they say about themselves and things that other characters say about them, and use this to inform how they develop their character.
EXTENSION ACTIVITY : • You can develop this by asking participants to create a mood board
for the characters. They should think about colours, landscapes, objects, clothing, words, people or anything that might suggest this character. You can create this digitally using a programme such as Pinterest or make a paper version.
• You could then ask participants to think about casting. Explain that when casting this production Phyllida Lloyd chose to cast a diverse group of women in the show (you could watch the Origins of the Trilogy video for more information.) When casting a production, a Director will often work with a Casting Director whose role it is to find and audition actors. They would work together to create a casting breakdown for each character, which details what they are looking for in actors auditioning for that part. Ask participants to create casting calls for the characters in the play. They should include a brief about the project and the mission of it, name/age range/gender of the character, a description of what the character is like and any specific skills required by the actor. Participants could include quotes from the play to describe the characters. Ask the participants to then think about who they would cast and why?
KEYWORDS: Mood Board – a collection of images, materials, pieces of text etc. that suggest an idea, style or character. Casting - the process of choosing actors to play the various roles in a theatre production or film. Casting Director – the person who works closely with the Director to find and audition actors.
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The Tempest: Character Quotes Can you match the following characters to the list of quotes about them from the play? Prospero Miranda Caliban Ariel Ferdinand Antonio Alonso Sebastian Gonzalo Stephano Trinculo 1. Moody? Malignant thing Spirit Brave spirit! 2. That’s a brave god and bears celestial liquor Master Lord Noble lord So full of valour that they smote the air for breathing in their faces King My drunken butler This drunkard 3. A noble Neapolitan His gentleness My good friends Him that you term’d, sir, ‘The Good old lord’ My true preserver, and a loyal sir 4. My dearest father Good sir Me, poor man, my library Was dukedom large enough Great master! Noble master! Boss A tyrant A sorcerer Potent master The wronged Duke of Milan
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5. Thy good friend Thou art made like a goose. What a pied ninny’s this? Thou scurvy patch! So full of valour that they smote the air for breathing in their faces 6. My drown'd father He receives comfort like cold porridge The king. You are three men of sin 7. My slave 'Tis a villain, sir, I do not love to look on. Thou tortoise Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself Thou most lying slave, Whom stripes may move, not kindness! Flith as thou art Hag-seed Abhorred slave A man or a fish? Dead or alive? Most perfidious and drunk monster? Puppy-headed monster Most ridiculous monster Abominable monster! A howling monster, a drunken monster! O brave monster! Servant- monster! So full of valour that they smote the air for breathing in their faces A devil And as with age his body uglier grows, so his mind cankers. 8. My brother-they uncle That a brother should be so perfidious Thy false uncle My good friends You are three men of sin For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother would even infect my mouth 9. my dear one, thee, my daughter the goddess On whom these airs attend! Precious creature Noble mistress O you. So perfect and so peerless, are created of every creature’s best.
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10. With hair up-staring- then like reeds A goodly person I might call him. A thing divine, for nothing natural. I ever saw so noble. Good friend A prince 11. My lord Noble My good friends You are three men of sin
