Bride of Ariel

[randy_byers]

French was followed in 1934, both at the Old Vic and at Sadler's Wells, by Elsa Lanchester, playing a very art-deco and decidedly feminine Ariel in a silver tunic, wings, and a cape, and wearing lipstick and mascara. James Agate praised her extravagantly for the lightness and radiance she brought to the part, compared her (perversely, surely) to Nijinsky's Faun, and claimed that 'until Miss Elsa Lanchester the part of Ariel has never been acted'.

-- Stephen Orgel, Introduction to The Tempest, Oxford University Press, 1987

Ariel as Tinkerbell? Makes me wish, possibly obscurely, that Julie Taymor was using Tilda Swinton as Ariel in her movie adaptation. And yes, that's also Charles Laughton as Prospero.