An, as near as damnit, one hundred year old clown in the final hours of his life, aware he is about to die and wanting to make his peace with the world before he goes. A twenty-eight year old actor...

So, bit of a challenge then.

My first worries were how do I convey that age and experience, how do I 'do' a hundred years old? Then I thought: Why do I seem twenty-eight years old? Surely its because I am, not because I think about it constantly or worry about it or show myself to be twenty-eight but just because I am. Sure, there are differences I notice between the eighteen year old me and the twenty-eight year old me, (hangovers are definitely harder to cope with!), but day to day I am too busy living to give much thought to how old/young I am. And I imagine it's the same for Scaramouche, he does not think about being very nearly a hundred, he just is. So, as with so many aspects of acting, age is about being not showing. My worry of how to access the experiences of the plays nomadic narrator is answered by the text itself, the story Scaramouche weaves is so rich, and his voice so clear telling it, that his experiences leak of the page and into you. Justin Butcher has written Scaramouche as such a vivid storyteller that my job of portraying the old clown is made so much easier, the layers upon layers of images draw me into the narrative and it is difficult not to feel ownership of his experiences and a personal connection to the tales he tells.

We have been approaching the play mask by mask, the play being punctuated by a series of seven white masks that symbolise the seven stages (or ages of man) Scaramouche passes through in his journey to become a clown. Each mask is a self contained story, a chapter in his life and is conveniently just the right size to rehearse in an evening.

We are now beginning to run the masks together and I'm starting to appreciate the energy required to sustain a narrative for this long, I'm knackered! Pace is key, too fast and an audience will get lost, too slow and I fear cries of, "get on with it you doddering old fool!" (if only from the sound and lighting operator) I'm learning that each image, whether described by word or movement must be absolutely specific. We are also discovering the different ways Scaramouche communicates with his audience, his "good ghosts." Sometimes he addresses them directly in the present, then he will launch into a story and take them with him into the past and accross the seas, and at times he will leave them behind and drift alone into his memories. The exploration of these different circles of concentration and how I switch between them is now proving key.

Right, 'bout ready to start running the whole thing then!