Magic Mark

MARK Quartley has joined the cast to play Ariel in the RSC’s forthcoming production of The Tempest, which opens in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in November to conclude Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary year.

Mark will be taking on a whole new area of stage craft by wearing a motion capture suit provided by The Imaginarium Studios.

This allows the movements of his ‘avatar’ Ariel to be projected on and around the stage, including flying and morphing into different versions of the spirit which are delivered by using Intel technology.

Mark last appeared at the RSC in Measure for Measure in 2011/12, and was a regular on television comedy Hoff the Record. As previously announced, Gregory Doran directs the award-winning Simon Russell Beale as Prospero, as he returns to the RSC for the first time in 23 years.

This production of Shakespeare’s late play, in collaboration with Intel and in association with The Imaginarium Studios, has been in development since September 2015, and aims to break new boundaries in theatre-making with the very first live motion capture performance appearing in a major classical stage production.