blank
Stagework | issues - ideas - people - performance


Search Stagework

home
productions
issues
people
for teachers
events & workshops
stagework blog
 
Alethiometer 
 
This is an image carousel
Pitt Rivers Museum
 
This is a video clip
Philip Pullman Reads
 
This is information text
Northern Lights
 
This is a video clip
Nicholas Wright
 
This is a video clip
Alethiometer Scene
 
This is information text
The Play Script
 

 
 

Alethiometer

The Alethiometer - from the Greek ‘truth measurer’ - is the most important prop in the plays. Though adults must study for years to decode its messages, the child Lyra learns how to use it by herself. Here you can discover the real instruments that inspired Philip Pullman and how these were interpreted to create the Alethiometer used in the plays. You can examine how the scene in which Lyra receives the instrument evolved from the original manuscript to the final play and see the scene with Lyra, the Master and Mrs Coulter in early rehearsal.

The anthropological collections of The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford provided author Philip Pullman with inspiration for many things in His Dark Materials. These include the Chinese compasses that inspired the Alethiometer, the trepanned skulls that show the presence of ‘dust’, the arctic costumes and of course a location for key events.

Philip Pullman reads from his original manuscript the scene in which Lyra is given the Alethiometer by the Master of Jordan College and told to keep it secret. You can then compare this with the same scene in the first published book Northern Lights. Playwright Nicholas Wright explains how he adapted the scene for the stage and you can see the Alethiometer scene in rehearsal and read the play script.

 

From the National Theatre
His Dark Materials
Go
 
People
Nicholas_Wright Nicholas Wright
Playwright
Jonathan_Dove Jonathan Dove
Composer
Philip_Pullman Philip Pullman
Novelist
Anna_Maxwell_Martin Anna Maxwell Martin
Actor
Issues
Beyond The Book
Faith Truth And Blasphemy
Connections: Lyra Meets Iorek Rehearsals | Tech Rehearsal Cast