INTERVIEW: Alice Marks sets sail in virtual ‘Tempest’
Photo: Alice Marks is featured in Shakespeare@Home’s The Tempest. Photo courtesy of the artist / Provided by Glenna Freedman PR with permission.
Shakspeare@, the New Jersey-based theater company, took their programming online recently with an audio dramatization of the Bard’s Richard II, and the project, featuring many top-of-the-line actors from around the world, was met with great enthusiasm. Now they’re at it again, this time with The Tempest, featuring David Hargreaves as Prospero, Jamie Ballard as Stephano, Maria-Christina Oliveras as Ariel, Jonathan Forbes as Caliban and Alice Marks as Miranda. Rounding out the radio cast are Keith Hamilton Cobb, Derek Wilson and Rin Allen, among others.
Listeners can tune in to episodes 1 and 2 right now, and episode 3 will premiere Thursday, Oct. 15.
Throughout the faithful adaptation, audience members can hear the work of director Sean Hagerty and enjoy the original music and sound design. In total there will be four episodes, each of them delivered to the public for free. This Shakespeare@Home initiative is a stand-in for the theater company’s normal programming, which was canceled due to this unprecedented pandemic. Hopefully, next year, in-person productions will come back to Jersey City, New Jersey, where Shakespeare@ is based.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Marks about her role of Miranda. As a performer, she splits her time between New York City and Melbourne, Australia, two fitting locations being that she was born in Boston and raised in Australia. She previously appeared in the Big Apple in The Maternity Monologues. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
How strange was it recording this Shakespearean part from a remote location?
Very surreal! I was working with an incredible cast and production team. Sean Hagerty, the brilliant artistic director of Shakespeare@, helped us conjure up Shakespeare’s magical world, and I was nearly 10,000 miles away. Practically speaking it was a very different experience to previous plays I’ve done because I was usually rehearsing in the middle of the night. Pretty much all of our cast and crew are based in the northern hemisphere, so it meant that I was rehearsing and recording scenes as late as 3 or 4 in the morning!
In all honesty, I was worried that by working remotely, there would be something lost in the way that us actors connected with each other. Live theatre is so dependent on the connection and chemistry you foster with your fellow colleagues on stage, and I feared that this would be difficult to achieve. But I was really surprised at how little this proved to be a challenge while recording! I think this was testament to the incredible people involved on this project and the true resonance of Shakespeare’s words. Just hearing them spoken to me from across the other side of the world was a pretty special experience.
How familiar were you with The Tempest, and what do you love about this play by the Bard?
I’ve always wanted to explore The Tempest. I’d seen a production or two, but I was less familiar with it than other Shakespearean plays. I love the quirky characters in this play, and how even in the later days of his playwriting career and his life, Shakespeare continued to create vibrant characters that hadn’t been seen by his audiences before. I love the relationship between Prospero and my character Miranda. They are exiled from a noble life in Milan, and therein springs a father-daughter bond that is removed from the political complications of courtly life. It’s incredibly tender. Exploring this in my scenes with David Hargreaves was such a joy, not to mention having the opportunity to work with such a wonderful Shakespearean veteran.
How did you approach your character?
Getting to know Miranda has been such a joy! It’s hard to remember sometimes that she’s so young and unexposed to the world. She barely even knows what men and women look like, having grown up so isolated from the world she was born into. I tried to keep that in mind as I prepared to rehearse and record. Preparing a character for a radio play, it was necessary to pay a lot more attention to what kind of vocal qualities I could give Miranda that were indicative of her personality — that sheer terror when she witnesses the sinking ship and the utter amazement when she first lays eyes on Ferdinand. Miranda may be innocent and somewhat naïve to the ways of the world, but she has this delightful curiosity about her that I wanted to capture.
How much has COVID-19 disrupted your professional career? When do you hope to be back to some semblance of normal?
While COVID-19 has been disruptive to my career, I’ve been very fortunate to have the support of family and friends while encountering these strange and uncertain times. It started with a jolt — I remember the day that Broadway shut down so clearly, my heart just fell. I was about to start rehearsing a play (with Sean and Shakespeare@ actually!), but it became pretty clear that it was going to be safer for me to vacate New York and to be in Melbourne while the pandemic played out.
It all happened so fast. I had to pack a suitcase and leave on the next flight that I could! I’m incredibly lucky to have been able to keep up some audio work during COVID, and self-tapes have become the new normal. Obviously we would all love to see our industry up and thriving again, but it’s going to take time. It has brought me so much hope and joy to see how people have been keeping creative and continuing to make art while in lockdown. It’s why our profession is so golden — pandemics can’t stop us from performing.
Are there any similarities between the Melbourne and New York City acting scenes? That’s a long commute!
Very long! But well worth it. When it comes to theatre, I think Melbourne and New York have a lot of similarities. The acting scene in Melbourne is very exciting as the city always plays host to a number of wonderful comedy and theatre festivals every year. There’s a burgeoning theatre scene that celebrates emerging playwrights and performers producing their own work. I see a lot of this celebrated in New York, too. I think that both places strike a nice balance with showing our all-time favourites with main-stage companies or on Broadway, but also encouraging more diverse voices to be putting out pieces and working towards equitable representation in the industry. Melbourne is also quite the hub for screen; they just hosted the International Film Festival remotely and did an amazing job with it.
When did you first fall in love with acting?
I think that one of the pleasures of acting is that it’s a craft you get to fall in love with over and over again. For me, it’s whenever I get the opportunity to watch an incredible performance or to participate in one myself. Acting never ceases to teach me new things — about myself, about other people, about the connections we make with each other. It keeps on giving. I think some of the first times I felt that love for acting was during high school. I loved lingering back in the theatre after drama class, getting lost in the costume cupboard or working on my lines. I had a wonderful drama teacher as well who turned into a real mentor. I was incredibly lucky to experience acting throughout my education and to be encouraged to pursue it further.
Again, I am so pleased with this audio production. I hope everyone will listen to The Tempest, which was recorded in four parts. People can catch up on episodes they may have missed worldwide on the company’s site Shakespeare_at.org. It’s free as well!
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Tempest, featuring Alice Marks, is being presented in four parts by Shakespeare@Home. Episode 3 premieres Thursday, Oct. 15. Click here for more information.
