Ariel (The Tempest) - Staging Ariel

Staging Ariel

The text of The Tempest contains more stage directions than most of Shakespeare's plays, giving scholars an opportunity to see into the portrayal of characters such as Ariel in Shakespeare's time. In Act III, Scene III, for example, when Ariel, as a harpy, is directed to clap his hands on a banquet table, he causes the food to disappear by a "quainte device". Scholars have tried to discover just what sort of "quainte device" would have been used by the King's Men in portraying this scene. Ariel's actor would have been unable to hide the food himself, having harpy wings over his arms which cumbered movement. The actor wouldn't even have been able to sweep the food into a receptacle behind the table, since the theatre had seating on three sides. What was needed was some sort of device to act on the signal of Ariel slapping his wings on the table. This device was probably a false table top which could be tripped by a boy underneath while the harpy's wings covered the food. When the wings lifted, the food would be gone, apparently by magic.Later in act three, when Ariel appears and disappears with thunder, another trick was probably used, involving some sort of basket on wires, covered in cloud designs, which the Globe theatre then had. Ariel may have descended from the air in this device as a harpy, spoken his lines, and ascended in the same device. Ariel may have descended on the back of an eagle, rather than clouds, or with no device at all—wires being attached to his harpy wings.

Later Act IV, Scene 1, Ariel says: "when I presented Ceres / I thought to have told thee of it / but I feared lest I might anger thee." Earlier in the same scene, Ceres, along with Iris and Juno, had appeared at Prospero's command in a Masque. Scholars have wondered whether Shakespeare originally intended the actor for Ariel to cover Ceres' role, and give it away in this line. The need for a dual role may have been caused by a shortage of boys capable of playing female parts (boys usually played all female roles in Shakespeare's day) as there are many female roles in The Tempest. This changing of parts requires a change in costume, which explains a lot of Ariel's delay in scene four in carrying out Prospero's orders. Time is allowed for the character to change from Ariel to Ceres and back. On the other side, Ceres may have been associated, by Shakespeare, to the Kairos figure, related to rhetorics, personating the opportune moment to present the convincing argument in a speech. Early critics were skeptical of the idea, saying that "presented Ceres" could merely mean that Ariel introduced Ceres to the gathering. More recent studies, however, have revealed that, given the small number of boys traveling with the King's Men and the large number of parts for them to fill, there would have been little choice in the matter. The entire scene comes together in a way that leads scholars to believe that the Masque scene with the three goddesses was added as an afterthought in order to work around costuming and role-playing issues.